COMPENDIA: Harmonizing business ownership data across countries and over time

This paper presents a harmonized data set over the period 1972-2002, containing two-yearly data on the number of non-agricultural business owners and the size of the labour force for 23 OECD countries, as well as the quotient of these two variables which is called the business ownership rate of a country. The data set is called COMPENDIA, which means COMParative ENtrepreneurship Data for International Analysis. It has been constructed by EIM Business and Policy Research, using OECD statistics (in particular OECD Labour Force Statistics) as well as other relevant sources. We make an attempt to make business ownership rates comparable across countries and over time. This is not straightforward as different countries measure business ownership or self-employment in different ways. The definition used in COMPENDIA includes both the unincorporated and the incorporated self-employed. This paper describes the methodology used for constructing the COMPENDIA data base. It also presents the business ownership rates for the 23 countries. Special attention is paid to the United States. This country alone accounts for about 30% of all self-employed reported in the COMPENDIA data set.

Determinants of employment in Europe, the USA and Japan, The

Onderzoek naar de determinantsverschillen in werkgelegenheid tussen Europa, Japan en de Verenigde Staten. Voor Europa is ook onderscheid gemaakt naar de verschillende subsectoren in de industrie.

The More Business Owners the Merrier? The Role of Tertiary Education

Policy in developed countries is often based on the assumption that higher business ownership rates induce economic value. However, not everyone can be a business owner and many labour market participants would contribute more to economic value creation as an employee than a business owner. The implied existence of an ‘optimal’ business ownership rate would thus replace the dictum of ‘the more business owners, the merrier’. We attempt to establish whether there is such an optimal level, while investigating the role of tertiary education. Two findings stand out. First, by estimating extended versions of traditional Cobb Douglas production functions on a sample of 19 OECD countries over the period 1981-2006, we find indeed robust evidence of an optimal business ownership rate. Second, the optimal business ownership rate tends to decrease with participation rates in tertiary education.  

The relationship between start-ups, market mobility and employment growth: An empirical analysis for Dutch regions

Recent literature suggests that two types of competition may contribute to macro-economic performance: the extent of new-firm entry and the extent of competition among incumbent firms. In the present paper we explain employment growth at the region-sector level using direct indicators for both these types of competition -the start-up rate and the market mobility rate- as main independent variables. While previous studies in this field measured competition among incumbent firms in an indirect way, we use a direct measure called market mobility. The empirical analysis reiterates existing results in that we find the long-term economic effect of start-ups to be bigger than the short-term effect. We also find empirical indications that this long-term effect consist of two significant parts. First, the most successful start-ups grow out to become high-growth firms, and second, the entry of new firms stimulates incumbent firms to perform better. �

The Role of Export-Driven New Ventures in Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Analysis

We investigate the relationship between a country’s prevalence of new ventures and its rate of economic growth, while distinguishing between export-oriented new ventures and domestic new ventures. It is generally acknowledged that new venture creation as well as export activity may both be important strategies for achieving national economic growth. However, to our knowledge no attempt has been made to empirically investigate the role of export-driven new ventures in economic growth. We focus on the national level and use data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for a sample of 36 countries. Our results suggest that a country’s prevalence of export-driven new ventures is significantly positively related to economic growth, whereas the prevalence of new ventures that focus exclusively on domestic market sales shows no significant relation to national growth.

Export Orientation among New Ventures and Economic Growth

While it is generally acknowledged that entrepreneurship as well as export activity may both be important strategies for achieving national economic growth, it has remained unclear how export activity among new ventures is related to economic growth. This paper investigates whether the presence of export-oriented entrepreneurs is a more important determinant of economic growth than entrepreneurial activity in general. We focus on the national or macro-level and use data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for a sample of 36 countries. An important advantage of using the macro-level is that indirect effects of exporting entrepreneurs that reach further than the performance of these firms themselves (e.g. spillovers) are captured in the analysis. To our knowledge, no attempt has been made thus far to link international activity of early-stage ventures to macro-economic out-comes. Our results suggest that export-oriented entrepreneurship is indeed more important for achieving high economic growth rates than entrepreneurial activity in general. This suggests that international activity by small and new firms strongly contributes to higher levels of competition and, consequently, to the emergence of highly dynamic economies and higher levels of economic growth.Entrepreneurship;Economic growth;Export;Global Entrepreneurship Monitor

Entrepreneurial diversity and economic growth

We investigate the impact of entrepreneurial diversity on national economic growth. More specifically, using data for 36 countries participating in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, we investigate whether the impact of entrepreneurial activity is different for different sociodemographic groups. Diversity is measured in terms of age, education and gender. We find that in less developed countries, older and higher educated entrepreneurs are particularly important for stimulating economic growth, while for highly developed countries the contribution of younger entrepreneurs is more important. We do not find evidence for a differential contribution of female and male entrepreneurs.

Types of Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth

In this paper, we empirically investigate the effect of entrepreneurship on economic growth at the country level. We use data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, which provides comparative data on entrepreneurship from a wide range of countries. An important element of this paper is that we compare the effects of entrepreneurial activity on economic growth in high income, transition and low income countries. This dataset also enables us to make a distinction between the effects of entrepreneurship in general and growth-oriented entrepreneurship in particular. We present empirical tests of the impact of entrepreneurial activity on GDP growth over a four year period for a sample of 36 countries. Our empirical analyses suggest that entrepreneurship does not have an effect on economic growth in low income countries, in contrast to transition and high income countries where especially growth-oriented entrepreneurship seems to contribute strongly to macroeconomic growthentrepreneurship, growth-oriented entrepreneurship, economic growth

Business Ownership and Sectoral Growth: An Empirical Analysis of 21 OECD Countries

We investigated the development of business ownership (self-employment) rates over time at the sectoral level and the effect of these rates on sectoral output growth. In an earlier exercise, Carree et al. (2002) presented an analysis of the interrelationship between economy-wide business-ownership rates and economic development. Their analysis raised an important research question: To what extent do differences in business ownership rates at the economy-wide level reflect differences in the sectoral structures of economies or differences in business-ownership rates at the sectoral level? The current paper investigates this question making use of a sectoral database of 21 OECD countries for the 1970-98 period. Estimation results suggest that there is, on average, a too low business-ownership rate in manufacturing and a too high business ownership rate in services. This paper was previously published as Research Report H200206. Compared to the earlier version, it specifically elaborates the theoretical foundation of the estimated model in more detail.