DOI: 10.3886/icpsr38154
title: Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics, PSED: A Five Cohort Outcomes Harmonized Data Set, 4 countries, 1998-2011
title: Archival Version

description: The Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) research program was designed to longitudinally examine the startup process with multi-year cohort tracking, so as to enhance the scientific understanding of how individuals start businesses. The date of entry into firm creation, eighteen start-up activities, and occurrence of major outcomes--initial profits or disengagement--have been harmonized for five PSED cohorts (Australia, China, Sweden, United States PSED I [ICPSR 37203], and United States PSED II [ICPSR 37202]). This unique resource is based on 3,910 nascent ventures for which 2,541 have outcome data. These cohorts are representative samples of business creation in their representative countries. The potential for assessing major processes associated with firm creation and the impact of different national contexts is enhanced by this data set.
description: The focus of this collection was to provide harmonized outcomes for all cases and develop case specific time lines representing the start-up window. This has provided two major advantages. First, by increasing the size of the sample of nascent entrepreneurs/ventures it enhances the potential for precise comparisons of the effects of various processes, either independently or in relation to each other. Second, it facilitates comparison of the start-up process in different contexts; the five cohorts represent business creation in four different countries. The data provide a description of the start-up process, reflected in the start-up activities, outcomes, and the timing in the start-up window, the actual presence of start-up activities in each time period, and a selected set of independent variables. There is a wealth of data, thousands of variables for some cohorts, on the nature of the start-up teams, strategies developed to implement the business, legal structure, sources and amounts of informal and formal financing, perceptions of context and the competition, and a wide range of other features of the firm creation process. The relevant case identification numbers are included to facilitate merging information on these topics from the original data files.
description: The creation of a new business represents a process that starts with preliminary activity and ends with a profitable new firm. New firm formation is a dynamic process, with adjustments as the start-up team purses implementation. The tasks required vary widely across different types of businesses and the contribution of each activity to success varies with changes in the economic context. Empirically based analysis of the business creation process requires at least two elements; it must be based on representative samples of all potential start-ups, both those that succeed an those that ultimately quit, and it must observe the potential startup over time to determine how and why some succeed and others quit. The Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) protocol responded to this challenge by adopting, after extensive field testing, several procedures. First, those active in the pre-profit stage of business creation were located with a screening module completed by representative samples of adults. Not only did this provide confidence that the sample represents business creation in the population, it also facilitated extrapolation from the sample to the total population for estimates of the total number of individuals or resources involved. Those active in business creation completed a detailed interview shortly after being identified in the screening. The second feature were the follow-up interviews, usually every 12 months, to determine the outcome of the effort to implement a new business. This provided clear evidence of the success of these efforts; those that reported profitable new firms provided details about their contributions to job creation, exports, and value added (or profits). A number of national PSED projects have been implemented since the pretest of the protocol in 1993. The most extensive data sets were developed in two large scale panels in the United States (U.S. PSED I in 1999 and U.S. PSED II in 2005). Other efforts were implemented in the first wave of projects in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden from 1997 to 1999. A second wave of projects was implemented from 2007 to 2009 in Australia (the Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence or CAUSEE), China, and the Netherlands. Five of these projects utilized very similar procedures for identifying the occurrence and timing of start-up activities and determining the outcomes of the process. This collection includes the harmonization of the data from these five projects: Australia (CAUSEE); China (CH-PSED); Sweden (SE-PSED); and from U.S. PSED I and II cohorts.
description: The data includes case weights that facilitate 1) adjustments reflecting variation in duration in the start-up process and 2) assessments of two units of analysis: nascent entrepreneurs and nascent ventures. Case weights adjusting for bias related to time in the duration process has a major effect on estimates of the proportion that become profitable and the time to reach an outcome.
description: All five projects started with screening a sample of representative adults to identify those active in business creation; the procedures varied among the cohorts. For the Australian, Swedish, and two U.S. cohorts this is the entire country. For the China-PSED it is eight cities, selected at random to represent four major regions of the country.
description: Datasets: DS1: Public-Use Data
description: Representative samples of business creation in their representative countries. Smallest Geographic Unit: City
description: telephone interviewFor additional information on this study, please visit the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics website.