Measuring and building high-quality entrepreneurship: a research prospectus

Abstract

This article discusses a detailed research design to measure entrepreneurship quality, as opposed to entrepreneurship quantity, and to develop a standard entrepreneurship quality measure focusing on high-growth small and often new businesses, based on critiques of previous entrepreneurship measures. Available longitudinal establishment-level data sources for building up the entrepreneurship quality index are introduced and evaluated and the Longitudinal Business Database of the US Census Bureau emerges as the best candidate because of its coverage and timely update. The creation and development of the entrepreneurship quality measure will enable researchers to empirically identify a wide range of economic, social, policy, and firm factors that may affect the development of high-quality entrepreneurship. The creation and development of the entrepreneurship quality measure will also enable researchers to uncover the critical role of high-quality entrepreneurship in economic growth in general and in rural development in particular.