The Census Bureau's Local Employment Dynamics (LED) has a call for papers out for its March 10-12, 2010, conference in Washington, D.C.  This is a program with some already innovative products such as On the Map which looks at where workers are employed compared to where they live, but in my estimation, LED has only just begun.  It is a program which will only become full funded in the next couple of years, if things go well, but the possibilities of useful products are almost endless.  Work is underway, as I understand, at Census to expand the matched data to include the self-employed as well as to look more specifically at products which would be of interest to different audiences such as regional and state policy makers. 

We (and I mean the big we, not just Kauffman) are obsessed with jobs right now, and rightfully so.  While the economy appears to be turning a corner, unemployment continues at stubbornly high rates.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) should be out with updated unemployment statistics within the next few days but several private sector reports on jobs came through more positive (see Wall Street Journal article for a good summary of these statistics). 

At Kauffman, we have been digging into jobs data over the last couple of months thanks to some special tabulations from the Census Bureau.  Today, Kauffman released the first white paper in a series which will attempt to make sense of these tabulations as well as a host of other data becoming available from BLS, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and Eurostat.  The current paper attempts to make the point that young firms (many of which are small) not just small businesses, generally, are the most active net job creators in the United States.  Haltiwanger, Jarmin, and Miranda find similar things in a working paper analysis using similar data sources. 

Andrew Reamer from the Brookings Institution has a good article on economy.com related to current state of federal economic statistics.  Andy knows more about these topics than just about anyone else in the country.  Hopefully his outreach efforts will stir interest in a wider audience about some of the troubling as well as exciting things going on in federal statistics. 

Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009 is almost here so I wanted to take a minute to highlight some of the more common sources on international data about entrepreneurship. 

Scott Shane had a nice posting on the NY Times blog last week using the World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey.  Currently the last data from that project was collected at the beginning of 2008.  The World Bank will be collecting two more years of data beginning in 2010.  The data currently cover approximately one hundred countries.  The data is not fully comparable across countries but it attempts to encourage comparability by looking at only one type of business registration, limited liability corporations, which the authors contend is the most consistent legal form across countries.  Also see upcoming event at the World Bank.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will be releasing data next week on 23 economies.  Drawing official data from national statistical offices, the OECD tabulations are of most interest for the study of developed economies but get into many aspects of growth firms like gazelle firms and high-growth firms in the economy.

Last week, the Legatum Institute put out a new version of their Prosperity Index (which has an entrepreneurship component).  According to their most recent index, “Entrepreneurs at the micro level need good economic policies at the macro level. Innovation and entrepreneurship are more strongly related to economic fundamentals than any other factor in a society. Aspiring entrepreneurs will often hit a 'ceiling' limiting their success if a nation’s economy is not fundamentally strong.”  There isn't anything there I would disagree with.  I am having some trouble finding the data details in their current report but as I remember, for many of their items, they rely on data from the Gallup World Poll, but interestingly entrepreneurship is not one of those items.  The Gallup World Poll does have some data available on entrepreneurship, although it is not as readily available as other sources.  A case study in what Gallup collects on many countries is included in this write-up on South Africa.

And lastly, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) continues to collect data on nascent entrepreneurship and some other aspects of entrepreneurship.  In our experience, countries must be aware of country-level quality issues related to the vendors which were used in collection but these data remain useful in some areas of cross-country study. 

I am really excited to be participating in a November 18, 2009, workshop that NORC is putting on titled "Assessing the Results of Microdata Access" in Washington, DC.  It should be an interesting session in that it will have several different data producers discussing aspects of their strategies for making data available for research.  More information is available on the NORC Data Enclave website. 

I will be attending a mini-conference on user innovation which the National Science Foundation is putting on next month.  It strikes me as something others might be interested in. 

• General story of and evidence for the paradigm shift from closed, producer-centered innovation toward open, user innovation.  Economic reasons for these changes.
• Data:  Canada and Netherlands surveys on the frequency of user innovation among firms; UK survey of product modification and development by end users/consumers
• Status of measurement today: What we can measure reasonably well now; what are the key statistical indicator and data collection shortcomings?
• What are we likely to gain from better understanding and measurement of the user innovation phenomena?  (business/economic opportunities, organization management, public policy, etc.)

• Participant reactions to and comments on Session I presentations
• Group perspective on where the user innovation ought to fit in the larger scheme of research on innovation and innovation policy analysis
• Discussion of what a next phase of user innovation research activities might most usefully look like.  
• Discussion of next steps and action items.

The Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth has issued a call for original research papers to be presented at the Third Annual Research Symposium on The Economics and Law of the Entrepreneur at Northwestern University School of Law. The Symposium will run from approximately 12:00 P.M. on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 to 3:00 PM on Friday, June 18th, 2010.  Deadline for paper submissions is February 10, 2010.

Over the last few years, I have seen only a few topics spread quickly across surveys - user innovation, management practices, and effectuation.  Effectuation (read definition) is definitely the topic from this list which I feel I understand the least so I hope to learn more in the next year.  Effectuation is a concept which was raised by Saras D. Sarasvathy at Darden but now has a much larger community of scholars involved in its exploration.  Indeed, you can read more about effectuation on a website created on the topic.  There are several upcoming workshops for doctoral students and educators on the topic.  Additionally, another event is coming up on the topic in December 2009:

In a new report just released today, the Kauffman Foundation (with leadership from Rob Fairlie) partnered with Fortune Small Business to examine the best places to launch a company in the United States.  Growing economies, affordable workers, stable housing markets, and low crime are just some of the features that led to the top cities in the list:

1.    1. Oklahoma City
2.    2. Pittsburgh
3.    3. Raleigh
4.    4. Houston
5.    5. Hartford
6.    6. Washington, D.C.
7.    7. Charlotte
8.    8. Austin
9.    9. New York City
10.   10. Baltimore

Fortune Small Business has developed a lot of online content to supplement this release including lots of data listings which will be of interest to many. 

The Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum will be holding a short workshop on October 30, 2009, on "Beyond the Crisis – Implications for SMEs, entrepreneurship and innovation" in Washington, DC.  I won't be able to attend this event because of a previous commitment but it looks potentially interesting.  See October 13 version of the agenda.