As part of an effort to understand the dynamics of new businesses in the United States, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation sponsored the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS), a panel study of new businesses founded in 2004 that are being tracked annually over their first eight years of operation.

The Kauffman Firm Survey started with a cohort of nearly 5,000 firms that began operations in 2004. This cohort is tracked annually and asked an extensive set of detailed questions that cover a range of topics such as the background of the founders, the sources and amounts of financing, firm strategies and innovations, and outcomes such as sales, profits, and survival. This report, with results through 2011, is the final iteration of the Kauffman Firm Survey.

The pace at which the United States produces $100-million companies has been stable over the last 20 years despite changes in the economy. However, according to this paper, the locations and sectors in which those companies are created are changing.

This study examines the particular experience of nascent academic entrepreneurs (NAEs) and the implications of this experience for universities and policymakers.

Not all startup companies are created equal. Although both innovation-driven enterprises (IDEs) and traditional small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can provide valuable products and services and create jobs, IDEs – startups focused on addressing global markets based on technological, process or business model innovation – can potentially create hundreds or even thousands of high-skill jobs if they succeed.

H-1B temporary visas have been an essential avenue for allowing high-skilled foreign nationals to work in America, according to a Kauffman Foundation-funded National Foundation for American Policy report.

Schools seeking to boost parental involvement will need to tailor their approaches to match parents’ differing views and concerns, according to a new report funded by the Kauffman Foundation.

As the unemployment rate fell in 2012, another economic indicator dropped too: the overall business creation rate. According to the annual Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, the 2012 rate declined slightly from 0.32 percent of American adults per month starting businesses in 2011 to 0.30 percent in 2012.

This, the second-annual Thumbtack.com Small Business Friendliness Survey showed that Utah, Alabama, New Hampshire, Idaho and Texas rated as the top-five friendliest states for small business.

The nurturing of new and young firms has so far not been given much attention in prominent global gatherings. International government meetings have mostly concentrated on passive SME policy and others like the World Economic Forum have treated entrepreneurs as a side ring at the circus. The maturing of the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC) to fill this gap is thus a welcome development.