For established U.S. scholars doing work that requires microdata access to high-quality information, the Internal Revenue Service's Research Program is worth a review.  The call for proposals was recently issued with deadline of December 15.  

We can't understand our economy without better firm-level information systems.  That's my essential summary of a new report out today, "Assessing competitiveness: how firm-level data can help," from Brugel, a European think tank.  It's a well-crafted and important report as it makes the case for policymakers why the back-end systems are important investments.  As the report shows, when we worry about averages and don't look more specifically at elements of the distributions and how those are changing or could be impacted by certain policies, we hurt our chances of driving competitiveness and economic growth.

In the appendix to the report the authors reference some of the international experiences related to firm-level data sets.  I think their summary there was restrained in its criticisms.  Indeed, I recently sat through a meeting of leading experts on measuring firm-level innovation and growth at the OECD and was appalled at some of the compromises that were going to have to be made in order to fulfill a European Commission mandate for immediate data.  It was clear why the compromises had to be made - national statistical offices have not received the investments they need to develop their infrastructures but more importantly they are only just beginning to realize they need to find ways to encourage firm-level research with their data. However, even with the signs of change I've seen afoot in terms of determination from these offices, they have no legal, political, or practical systems in place to meet this challenge.  Indeed, at a time when most countries are undergoing significant public sector cuts, I am worried that the clear needs here will not be met with dollars.  I've seen many bodies, including the OECD which I had always thought of as the true champion of international analyses using government data moving towards more instances in which their reports rely more heavily on private data sources instead of government data.  While private sources should have their place, they cannot be a replacement for official data.  That said, if national statistical offices don't get behind some of the important issues Brugel outlined here, I fear that many nations may become more and more satisfied with substandard official statistics.  Indeed, some of the current crises in Europe have been driven by lacking regulatory mechanisms on national statistics (see articles on Greece).  

The OECD has a new version of their timely indicators on entrepreneurship available today at the national level for 10 countries.  



These data show that new business formation continues to operate in most countries at the new levels which were reached after the 2008 recession (Australia stands out for its continued positive performance).  These are the most timely indicators available internationally and seem to show anemic start-up rates continue in most countries although the rates haven't worsened for the most part.  

This release is timed around the start of Global Entrepreneurship Week.  I would just note that there is much more data available from the OECD on more complicated and nuanced views of entrepreneurship.  Most of that data is current through 2007 or 2008.  

Check out Bob Litan's piece on MSNBC today Small is Not New, Big is Not Always Better.  

The Washington Post has a nice piece online today examining some of the claims and counter-claims about how small business owners would be impacted by tax increases on those earning more than a million dollars.  The Post is correct in its suggestion that the more narrow interpretation of the data is the better one.  Indeed, it's not surprising that if one is looking at millionaires that the vast majority have some ownership in a business of some sort.  When you have that much money you have to park it somewhere to make a return and owning a business seems a natural place (in the given data it's impossible to make attributions about how the millionaires made their money as none of the analysis is really longitudinal).  If you aren't looking at where they are also investing their time in running a business then you would be creating a group of people who is dominated by investors and not business operators.  While this might be something which is helpful in talking about angel investors, it's probably not a good characterization of the question being posed.

One piece we released last year is relevant to this discussion but has not been picked up by many in the mainstream discussion.  Business Owners, Financial Risk, and Wealth uses the Survey of Consumer Finance to examine how business owners appears similar and different to other groups in their wealth and risk preferences.  It shows that in most ways business owners (defined even more conservatively than the Post article suggests) are conservative in many of their borrowing and savings patterns but more likely to assume risk for return.  The study concludes: "The results suggest that policies aimed at increasing business ownership should focus on helping households identify high-value business opportunities through transparent tax, legal, and regulatory systems. Efforts to reduce risk should focus on the business venture, such as full loss offsets, rather than focusing on reductions in other financial risks." Worth a read for those following this debate.