What is the Entrepreneurship Database?
The Entrepreneurship Database is a unique source of comparable and cross-country data on business registration aimed at facilitating a greater understanding of the dynamics of private enterprises around the world. The main Entrepreneurship Database indicator measures the new business density. It is the number of newly registered firms, in which ownership liability is limited to its investment, per calendar year, normalized by adult population.
First published in 2011, the Entrepreneurship Database has been updated every two years and grows in scope to cover more economies and more data points over time.
The 7th edition of Entrepreneurship Database contains annual data on the number of companies over the period of 2006-2022 and sex disaggregated annual data on entrepreneurs over the period 2014-2022.
Definition of variables and units of measurement
In order to measure entrepreneurship in a way that is universally comparable, the Entrepreneurship Database employs a methodology that can be applied across heterogeneous legal regimes and economic systems. The concept of entrepreneurship can cover a wide range of activities. Schumpeter defines entrepreneurship as the assumption of risk and responsibility in designing and implementing a business strategy or starting a business.Gough defines an entrepreneur as a person who undertakes and operates a new enterprise and assumes some accountability for the inherent risks. For the purposes of this project, entrepreneurship is defined as the activities of an individual or a group of individuals aimed at initiating economic enterprise in the formal sector under a legal form of business.
The legal form of business refers to private companies with limited liability. Limited liability companies are those in which the financial liability of the firm¡¯s members is limited to the value of their investment in the company. A limited liability company is a separate legal entity that has its own privileges and liabilities. Although the laws on business registration vary greatly across countries, the approach to legal entities is largely uniform: any business with a unique legal entity (or ¡°corporate personhood¡±) separate from its owners must be registered.
The definition of entrepreneurship used is limited to the formal sector. Yet, it should be noted that the exclusion of the informal sector is based on the difficulties of quantifying the number of firms that compose it, rather than on its relevance for developing economies.
The Entrepreneurship Database facilitates the analysis of the growth of the formal private sector and the identification of factors that encourage firms to begin operations in or transition to the formal sector.
- Newly registered companies with limited liability: The main input for calculating the new business entry density rate is the number of newly registered companies with limited liability (or its equivalent), per calendar year. Importantly, limited liability is a concept whereby the financial liability of the firm¡¯s members is limited to the value of their investment in the company. It is a separate legal entity that has its own privileges and liabilities. This study collects information on all new limited liability companies regardless of size.
- New business density rate: The number of newly registered firms with limited liability per 1,000 working-age people (ages 15-64) per calendar year.
- Total number of registered companies with limited liability: It refers to the overall stock of companies with limited liability companies at the end of each calendar year.
- Total business density rate: The total number of registered firms with limited liability per 1,000 working-age people (ages 15-64) at the end of each calendar day.
- Closed companies with limited liability: They refer to the number of formally deregistered companies with limited liability companies in business registry database. It does not include all other cases such as the suspension of firms or temporary measures.
- Closed business density rate: The number of deregistered firms with limited liability per 1,000 working-age people (ages 15-64) per calendar year.
- Adult population: The main source of information is the World Development Indicators. If the population data were not available in the World Development Indicators; other sources such as the CIA, the ILO, the Index Mundi or national databases were used.
- Business owners: Individuals that own at least one share of a newly registered limited liability company (LLC) in the calendar year. The number of owners of new LLCs is disaggregated by gender for each calendar year. The share of owners of LLCs is a proportion of the female/male business owners out of the total number owners of LLCs.
- Business directors: Individuals who conduct the affairs of a newly registered limited liability companies in the calendar year. The number of directors of new LLCs is disaggregated by gender for each calendar year. The share of directors of LLCs is a proportion of the female/male directors out of the total number of directors of LLCs.
- Sole proprietors: A sole proprietorship is a business entity owned and managed by a single individual who is indistinguishable from the business and personally liable. The number of sole proprietors is disaggregated by gender for each calendar year. The share of sole proprietors is a proportion of the female/male sole proprietors out of the total number of sole proprietors.
Data collection
The Entrepreneurship Database has developed a data collection methodology to systematically measure entrepreneurial activity. The 7th edition of the Entrepreneurship Database contains annual data on the number of firms over the period of 2006-2022. To facilitate cross-country comparability, the Entrepreneurship Database employs a consistent unit of measurement, source of information, and concept of entrepreneurship that is applicable and available among the diverse sample of participating economies.
The data collection process involves telephone interviews and email correspondence with business registries. The main sources of information for this study are national business registries. In a limited number of cases where the business registry was unable to provide the data ¨C most often due to an absence of digitized registration systems ¨C the Entrepreneurship Database uses other alternatives sources, such as statistical agencies, tax and labor agencies, chambers of commerce, and publicly available data.
Offshore centers
Data collected from economies categorized as offshore financial centers by Eurostat are excluded from the analysis, because registered entities in these countries may not fit the objective of the Entrepreneurship Database aiming at measuring formally registered companies with actual economic activities. The information provided by these economies likely reflects a number of shell companies, defined as companies that are registered for tax purposes but are not economically active.
The information on offshore centers is collected and published by the Entrepreneurship Database, but it is not used for trend analysis purposes.
What is We-Fi?
The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) supports women entrepreneurs by scaling up access to financial products and services, building capacity, expanding networks, offering mentors, and providing opportunities to link with domestic and global markets. In particular, this initiative aims to collect and publish global gender-disaggregated data on business entry and ownership.
Measuring women¡¯s entrepreneurial activity is critically important for a better understanding of how female entrepreneurs contribute to the economy and society. The lack of comprehensive sex-disaggregated data on business entry and ownership presents a significant obstacle to the global and diversified analysis of female entrepreneurship. Due to insufficient standardized and country-comparable data, the diagnostics of gender gaps in entrepreneurship are limited.
Download the methodology note on the Entrepreneurship Datase
Download the questionnaire instrument used in the data collection cycle in English
Download the questionnaire instrument used in the data collection cycle in Arabic
Download the questionnaire instrument used in the data collection cycle in French
Download the questionnaire instrument used in the data collection cycle in Portuguese
Download the questionnaire instrument used in the data collection cycle in Spanish
Download the questionnaire instrument used in the data collection cycle in Russian