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The Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs: An Update

January 2017

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The 10 most similar working papers to the working paper 'The Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs: An Update' are listed below in order of similarity.

• Working Paper

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  The Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs: An Introduction
  

  November 2015

  Authors: Lucia Foster, Patrice Norman

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-15-40R

  The Census Bureau continually seeks to improve its measures of the U.S. economy as part of its mission. In some cases this means expanding or updating the content of its existing surveys, expanding the use of administrative data, and/or exploring the use of privately collected data. When these options cannot provide the needed data, the Census Bureau may consider fielding a new survey to fill the gap. This paper describes one such new survey, the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE). Innovations in content, format, and process are designed to provide high-quality, timely, frequent information on the activities of one of the important drivers of economic growth: entrepreneurship. The ASE is collected through a partnership of the Census Bureau with the Kauffman Foundation and the Minority Business Development Agency. The first wave of the ASE collection started in fall of 2015 (for reference period 2014) and results will be released in summer 2016. Qualified researchers on approved projects will be able to access micro data from the ASE through the Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC) network.
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• Working Paper

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  The Characteristics of Business Owners Database, 1992
  

  May 1999

  Authors: Brian Headd

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-99-08

  This report describes the Characteristics of Business Owners (CBO), 1992 microdata available to researchers at the Center for Economic Studies and the CBO survey. The Bureau of the Census has conducted the 1982, 1987, and 1992 CBOs for the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Minority Business Development Agency, and the general public. For the 1992 CBO, there were three surveys, a sole proprietor survey, an owner survey for each owner in partnerships and S corporations, and a firm survey for each partnership and S corporation. For database purposes, the owner questions on the sole proprietors survey and owner survey were merged, and the firm questions on the sole proprietors survey and firm survey were merged. The owner database has 116,589 records, and the firm survey has 78,147 records. The CBO reports on owners about their background such as owner type (race, and ethnicity), age, education, work experience, veteran status, etc. The CBO reports on firms (with and without employees) about their economic details such as industry, financing, home-based, exporting, franchising, profits, etc. In addition, the CBO was conducted in 1996 on firms in existence in 1992 allowing for some survivability analysis. The CBO over samples women and minority owners to allow researchers to more reliably study these owners. This survey is an extension of the Survey of Minority-Owned Business Enterprises (SMOBE) and Survey of Women-Owned Businesses (WOB) within the economic census. The CBO is available as a report, special tabulations, or microdata for approved researchers.
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• Working Paper

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  Measuring the Effect of COVID-19 on U.S. Small Businesses: The Small Business Pulse Survey
  

  May 2020

  Authors: Lucia Foster, Shawn Klimek, Emin Dinlersoz, Catherine Buffington, Carrie Dennis

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-20-16

  In response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Census Bureau developed and fielded an entirely new survey intended to measure the effect on small businesses. The Small Business Pulse Survey (SBPS) will run weekly from April 26 to June 27, 2020. Results from the SBPS will be published weekly through a visualization tool with downloadable data. We describe the motivation for SBPS, summarize how the content for the survey was developed, and discuss some of the initial results from the survey. We also describe future plans for the SBPS collections and for our research using the SBPS data. Estimates from the first week of the SBPS indicate large to moderate negative effects of COVID-19 on small businesses, and yet the majority expect to return to usual level of operations within the next six months. Reflecting the Census Bureau's commitment to scientific inquiry and transparency, the micro data from the SBPS will be available to qualified researchers on approved projects in the Federal Statistical Research Data Center network.
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• Working Paper

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  Small Business Pulse Survey Estimates by Owner Characteristics and Rural/Urban Designation
  

  September 2021

  Authors: Lucia Foster, Shawn Klimek, Emin Dinlersoz, Catherine Buffington, Daniel Chapman, James Hunt

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-21-24

  In response to requests from policymakers for additional context for Small Business Pulse Survey (SBPS) measures of the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses, we researched developing estimates by owner characteristics and rural/urban locations. Leveraging geographic coding on the Business Register, we create estimates of the effect of the pandemic on small businesses by urban and rural designations. A more challenging exercise entails linking micro-level data from the SBPS with ownership data from the Annual Business Survey (ABS) to create estimates of the effect of the pandemic on small businesses by owner race, sex, ethnicity, and veteran status. Given important differences in survey design and concerns about nonresponse bias, we face significant challenges in producing estimates for owner demographics. We discuss our attempts to meet these challenges and provide discussion about caution that must be used in interpreting the results. The estimates produced for this paper are available for download. Reflecting the Census Bureau's commitment to scientific inquiry and transparency, the micro data from the SBPS will be available to qualified researchers on approved projects in the Federal Statistical Research Data Center network.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  High Frequency Business Dynamics in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic
  

  March 2021

  Authors: John Haltiwanger, Lucia Foster, Emin Dinlersoz, Catherine Buffington, Daniel Chapman

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-21-06

  Existing small businesses experienced very sharp declines in activity, business sentiment, and expectations early in the pandemic. While there has been some recovery since the early days of the pandemic, small businesses continued to exhibit indicators of negative growth, business sentiment, and expectations through the first week of January 2021. These findings are from a unique high frequency, real time survey of small employer businesses, the Census Bureau's Small Business Pulse Survey (SBPS). Findings from the SBPS show substantial variation across sectors in the outcomes for small businesses. Small businesses in Accommodation and Food Services have been hit especially hard relative to those Finance and Insurance. However, even in Finance and Insurance small businesses exhibit indicators of negative growth, business sentiment, and expectations for all weeks from late April 2020 through the first week of 2021. While existing small businesses have fared poorly, after an initial decline, there has been a surge in new business applications based on the high frequency, real time Business Formation Statistics (BFS). Most of these applications are for likely nonemployers that are out of scope for the SBPS. However, there has also been a surge in new applications for likely employers. The surge in applications has been especially apparent in Retail Trade (and especially Non-store Retailers). We compare and contrast the patterns from these two new high frequency data products that provide novel insights into the distinct patterns of dynamics for existing small businesses relative to new business formations.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 on Businesses and People: Lessons from the Census Bureau's Experience
  

  January 2021

  Authors: Lucia Foster, Catherine Buffington, Jason Fields

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-21-02

  We provide an overview of Census Bureau activities to enhance the consistency, timeliness, and relevance of our data products in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We highlight new data products designed to provide timely and granular information on the pandemic's impact: the Small Business Pulse Survey, weekly Business Formation Statistics, the Household Pulse Survey, and Community Resilience Estimates. We describe pandemic-related content introduced to existing surveys such as the Annual Business Survey and the Current Population Survey. We discuss adaptations to ensure the continuity and consistency of existing data products such as principal economic indicators and the American Community Survey.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  Past Experience and Future Success: New Evidence on Owner Characteristics and Firm Performance
  

  September 2010

  Authors: Ron Jarmin, C.J. Krizan

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-10-24

  Because the ability of entrepreneurs to start their own businesses is key to the success of the U.S. economy and to the economic mobility of many disadvantaged demographic groups, understanding why entrepreneurship activity varies across groups and geography is an increasingly important issue. As a step in this direction we employ a novel set of metrics of business success to the growing literature and find great variation across groups and metrics. For example, we find that black-owned firms grow slower than white or Asian-owned firms. However, once we condition on firm survival, the differences disappear. Interestingly, we also find differences across groups in their start-up histories. For example, Asian-owned firms are less likely than white-owned firms to have started-out as nonemployers but firms owned by all other minority groups, as well as women-owned firms, are more likely to start-out without employees.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  The Characteristics of Business Owners (CBO) Database
  

  October 1989

  Authors: Alfred R Nucci

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-89-09

  The Bureau of the Census conducted the Characteristics of Business Owners (CBO) survey for the Small Business Administration and the Minority Business Development Agency in 1986. The CBO collected information from a national sample of 126,000 business owners, surveying the demographic and economic characteristics of owners and the economic performance of their firms. A major feature of the CBO is the large numbers of Hispanic, Asian and Other, Black and Women businesses, in addition to nonminority, male-owned businesses. The CBO data series also serves the broader purpose of providing data on characteristics of owners and firms in the small business population. This paper provides a report of the purpose, content, and basic procedures used for the survey and presents a preliminary discussion of the coverage and overall response.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  High-Growth Entrepreneurship
  

  January 2017

  Authors: J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Mee Jung Kim, Kyung Min Lee

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-17-53

  We study the patterns and determinants of job creation for a large cohort of start-up firms. Analysis of the universe of U.S. employers reveals strong persistence in employment size from firm birth to age seven, with a small fraction of firms accounting for most employment at both ages, patterns that are little explained by finely disaggregated industry controls or amount of finance. Linking to data from the Survey of Business Owners on characteristics of 54,700 founders of 36,400 start-ups, and defining 'high growth' as the top 5% of firms in the size distribution at age zero and seven, we find that women have a 30% lower probability of founding high-growth entrepreneurships at both ages. A similar gap for African-Americans at start-up disappears by age seven. Other differences with respect to race, ethnicity, and nativity are modest. Founder age is initially positively associated with high growth probability but the profile flattens after seven years and even becomes slightly negative. The education profile is initially concave, with advanced degree recipients no more likely to found high growth firms than high school graduates, but the former catch up to those with bachelor's degrees by firm age seven, while the latter do not. Most other relationships of high growth with founder characteristics are highly persistent over time. Prior business ownership is strongly positively associated, and veteran experience negatively associated, with high growth. A larger founding team raises the probability of high growth, while diversity (by gender, age, race/ethnicity, or nativity) either lowers the probability or has little effect. More start-up capital raises the high-growth propensity of firms founded by a sole proprietor, women, minorities, immigrants, veterans, novice entrepreneurs, and those who are younger or with less education. Perhaps surprisingly, women, minorities, and those with less education tend to choose high growth industries, but fewer of them achieve high growth compared to their industry peers.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  IMMIGRANT ENTREPRENEURS AND INNOVATION IN THE U.S. HIGH-TECH SECTOR
  

  February 2019

  Authors: J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Mee Jung Kim, Kyung Min Lee

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-19-06

  We estimate differences in innovation behavior between foreign versus U.S.-born entrepreneurs in high-tech industries. Our data come from the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, a random sample of firms with detailed information on owner characteristics and innovation activities. We find uniformly higher rates of innovation in immigrant-owned firms for 15 of 16 different innovation measures; the only exception is for copyright/trademark. The immigrant advantage holds for older firms as well as for recent start-ups and for every level of the entrepreneur's education. The size of the estimated immigrant-native differences in product and process innovation activities rises with detailed controls for demographic and human capital characteristics but falls for R&D and patenting. Controlling for finance, motivations, and industry reduces all coefficients, but for most measures and specifications immigrants are estimated to have a sizable advantage in innovation.
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