NYT: Are We Becoming Less Entrepreneurial?

By Scott A. Shane

In the past I have written about the declining rate of entrepreneurship in the United States and have shown some charts demonstrating it. In today’s post, I want to return to my discussion of this problem and provide evidence of the trend from three different sources.

First, I have produced a modified version of a chart on the number of new employer firms — firms that have at least one employee — formed annually per thousand people (thick blue line) in the United States from 1990-2007. (I originally posted a version of this chart on the U.S. News and World Report Web site when I blogged there.) I have added the linear trend line (thin black line) to show that this rate, though highly variable, is trending downward. On a per capita basis, we are creating fewer employer firms per capita than we did back in 1990. (more)