The OECD has a new statistical brief out on entrepreneurship that focuses heavily on timely indicators of entrepreneurial activity.  While these new indicators are not fully comparable across countries, the OECD focuses on the within country changes that have occurred recently.

Number of New Enterprises, 2006=100





The report has many other things from the OECD's core indicators which now have several years of time series data, but most of the interest will fall on the timely data.  This downturn seems to have affected negatively most employer business entries in different countries.  Because of the tightening of credit markets associated with the recent recessions, this isn't entirely surprising but is significant because this and the World Bank's recent data are the most concrete measures of new, larger business entries across countries.  Neither report looks at self-employment.  I know that Legatum also has a new Prosperity Index out but I haven't been able to review it yet.

I don't think the OECD has it's new country-level data posted on its website yet, but academics interested in that data should watch as it should be updated at any time.  A more detailed publication with the data will follow in the spring 2011.