FROM ENTREPRENEURSHIP TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: CELEBRATING TEN YEARS OF GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP MONITOR

ABSTRACT This paper reviews ten years of theoretical and empirical contributions by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor consortium. The evolution of GEM measures of entrepreneurship is tracked, and the quantity and quality of peer-reviewed scholarship based on GEM data and models is assessed. Prospects for the future are noted, as GEM continues to expand and scholars outside the consortium increasingly employ GEM data in their work. INTRODUCTION In this paper, we review the ten years of empirical and theoretical contributions of the GEM project. We do this by first reviewing the main scientific contributions of GEM to date. Second we analyze the evolution of GEM’s main indicators over the 10-year period 1999-2008 and show how some GEM measures effectively could contribute to our understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic development. Finally we highlight recent advances in entrepreneurship measures and propose recommendations that may benefit the GEM project. Entrepreneurs create new businesses, and new businesses create jobs, intensify competition, and may even increase productivity through technological change. This is how entrepreneurship is believed to contribute to economic development. Some studies argue that during the last two decades the development of new technologies, and by consequence the emergence of new business models, has shifted from large corporations to small and new ventures (Audretsch and Thurik, 2001; Thurow, 2003; Wennekers et al., 2005, Amoros and Cristi, 2008). By consequence high levels of entrepreneurship will thus translate directly into high levels of innovation, employment and development (Schumpeter, 1934; Baumol, 2002; Acs and Audretsch, 1988). However, we have much to learn about why entrepreneurship rates differ not only among countries with different development stages but also among regions in a single country, and why not all entrepreneurial efforts have the same impact on economic development. Many of these issues are widely explored by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research program, which assesses entrepreneurial activity annually in nations and regions of the world. GEM was created in September 1997 by Michael Hay and Bill Bygrave as a joint research initiative by London Business School and Babson College. The project’s success would not have been possible without the tremendous efforts of GEM entrepreneur Paul Reynolds, who was Principal Investigator of the project between 1998 and 2003. The first GEM Global study was conducted in 1999. This first effort analyzed 10 countries: the G7 countries (i.e., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and United States) and three additional countries, Denmark, Finland and Israel because some researchers of these countries had relevant expertise. 1Acs et al.: CELEBRATING TEN YEARS OF GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP MONITORFrontiers of Entrepreneurship Research 2009

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