Dr Jeff Cornwall

The latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report has been released and it continues to show the strength of entrepreneurial economic development around the world. Once again, there seems to be some data they just can’t quite figure out.
As reported by the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship, “entrepreneurial activity tends to decline as national incomes rise. So, the highest levels of entrepreneurial activity among participating countries can be found in Uganda, Peru, and Ecuador. Meanwhile, the worst performing countries-Japan, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, and Finland—all tend to enjoy relative prosperity.”
The report then acknowledges that there is at least one pesky exception to this pattern: The United States.
Let’s try a counter hypothesis to the data they found. Japan, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, and Finland are all countries that are fond of socialism and planned economies. The GEM studies only have data for seven years, and they do not report any trends that back up their assertion that entrepreneurial fell in these countries because they built up wealth. On the contrary, they compare these countries to developing economies and assume that the difference must be the relative level of wealth in these countries.
Let’s try my hypothesis. Because Japan, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, and Finland try to control their economies in one way or another, they stifle entrepreneurial activity. The one shining exception among wealthier nations (at least until our own slide to socialism is complete) is the US. We still are a country with relatively low barriers to business start-up and less overall regulation on commerce. The US is not some statistical anomaly. Our current economic expansion is driven by entrepreneurship because our public policy and our culture support business formation.