This report is part of the research program “SMEs and Entrepreneurship” which is financed by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.

The data set COMPENDIA contains harmonized data on the number of business owners and the size of the labour force for 23 OECD countries over the period 1972-2000, as well as the quotient of these two variables which is called the business ownership rate of a country. Business ownership rates...

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...

Since several years EIM Business and Policy Research maintains a data base on business ownership rates across OECD countries, called COMPENDIA (COMParative ENtrepreneurship Data for International Analysis). EIM harmonizes raw numbers of business owners (self-employed), as published in the OECD...

This paper examines variations in entrepreneurship across twenty developed countries, using three measures of entrepreneurship which we broadly describe as prestart, early-stage and established enterprises. It then links these measures to the economic institutional framework, holding constant a...

This paper deals with explaining the sizable differences in the rate of self-employment (business ownership) across 15 European countries in the period 1978-2000, within a framework of occupational choice, focusing on the influence of dissatisfaction and of per capita income. Using two different...

Administrative burdens are known to be a major business constraint for incumbent SMEs in modern economies. Far less is known about the influence of these burdens on the startup of new firms. The current paper examines to what extent perceived administrative complexity related to starting a new...

This exploratory study defines a number of propositions regarding the relation between social security arrangements and the rate of early-stage entrepreneurial activity at the country level. We state that in investigating this relation it may be relevant to distinguish between social security...

This exploratory study focuses on the relation between social security arrangements and the rate of early-stage entrepreneurial activity at the country level. Using a sample of countries participating in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, we explore how various measures of entrepreneurial...

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...