Measuring entrepreneurship the European approach OECD Entrepreneurship Indicators

Measuring entrepreneurship the European approach OECD Entrepreneurship Indicators Project Expert Workshop 26 -27/10/2005 Peter Bøegh Nielsen, Hartmut Schrör European Commission (DG MARKT, Eurostat)

The European Enterprise Demography Project n Justification: The Lisbon programme: n The recognised need to foster more entrepreneurial drive in Europe n Context: Almost starting from scratch n No harmonised European data n Only few national experiences n n Phase 1: Launching a pilot survey to produce structural data Phase 2: Mandatory data collection

Business demography Project: Variables and indicators n n n Birth / death rates as indicators of economic dynamism Survival rates as indicators of start-up success Effects of enterprise birth and death on employment Growth of surviving enterprises and its effect on employment Breakdown of these indicators by n n n Economic activity (NACE 2 -3 digit level) Size class (employees) Legal form

Business demography - dissemination n Data and publications available free of charge at Eurostat website http: //epp. eurostat. cec. eu. int Reference years 1997 to 2002 17 Member States, Norway, Romania

Phase 3: Enlarging the scope to other topics n n From measuring start-ups to measuring factors of business success From enterprise statistics to profiling of entrepreneurs

How to measure Factors of Business Success Figure 1. Survival rates for new enterprises in Denmark 1990 – 2000, 1994 – 2000 and 1998 - 2000

Branch experience having an impact Figure 2. Survival rate for entrepreneurs broken down by branch experience

Can we identify gazelles?

‘Factors of Business Success’ project n n Joint project of DG MARKT and Eurostat with 15 national statistical institutes Survey of enterprises newly born in 2002 that have survived for 3 years Common questionnaire, partly based on national experience (DK, FR, IT, PL, SE) Common recommendations on methodology (sampling, grossing-up etc. )

Elements of the questionnaire n Start-up conditions and profile of the entrepreneur n n n Motivation for start-up Financing Difficulties at start-up Entrepreneur’s characteristics: education, experience, gender, age, citizenship Present situation n Employment, turnover Co-operation, networking Difficulties developing the enterprise

Elements of the questionnaire n Future plans n n Future of the enterprise (continuing, selling, closing down) Development of employment, turnover, investments

Expected results n n n April 2006: data delivery to Eurostat Autumn 2006: publication of results Autumn 2006: review of project, decision on followup project

The road ahead n Focus on special segments: n n n Gazelles Innovative start-ups Spin-offs Female entrepreneurs Ethnic entrepreneurs Future challenge: Ageing entrepreneurs n Facilitating take-overs