Nascent entrepreneurs are people who are engaged in creating new ventures. This chapter reviews the international evidence on how many of them are there around the world, what they are doing, who they are, what makes them different, and which ones see their vision through to eventual start-up.

Four decades ago, Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan made the argument that the black family "was not strong enough to create those extended clans that elsewhere were most helpful for businessmen and professionals." Using data from the confidential and restricted access Characteristics of...