Self-employed doesn't equal entrepreneur

“Small business activity does not measure entrepreneurship” is the title of an article by Magnus Henrekson and Tino Sanandaji, both IFN, published in the prestigious American scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The two researchers discuss Schumpeterian entrepreneurship, referring to growing and innovative firms: “In empirical research the rate of entrepreneurship is commonly estimated using the self-employment rate or other measures of small business activity. We argue that this empirical strategy gives rise to misleading inferences regarding Schumpeterian entrepreneurship.”