Where in the World Is the Most Entrepreneurial Country?

Right behind the idea that America is the land of the free and the home of the brave is the idea that America is the land of entrepreneurship.

But is it true? Strictly speaking, no. America is one of the lands of entrepreneurship, but it's far from being the globe's leading light in that category. Denmark wins that title, followed by Canada in second place, according to a report released this month, "Global Entrepreneurship and the United States," paid for by the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy.

The United States ranks third overall behind those two countries on the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index. On one of the GEDI's sub-indexes, this one ranking entrepreneurial activity, the U.S. came in eighth. It did rank first in one sub-index measuring entrepreneurial aspirations. Based on that, you might say that America is the land of wannabe entrepreneurship.

The SBA report is accompanied by some hand-wringing about the supposed loss of entrepreneurial superiority, what it means for America's future and how it might be reversed. However, the information that America is not really the land of entrepreneurship is not new. Business professor Scott Shane, in his invaluable 2008 book, "The Illusions of Entrepreneurship," made that clear years ago.

Shane looked at several different data sources for his conclusions. On one, which measured self-employment among 25 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, he found that Turkey was atop the list. The U.S. had about one-fourth as many self-employed, percentage-wise, as the Turks. America ranked almost at the bottom ahead of only Norway and Luxembourg. Another OECD self-employment report looks much the same.

Shane found similar results when he looked at new and young business ownership by percentage of population. Thailand carried the bell away on that one. The U.S. was 25th of 35 countries ranked.

It's not clear exactly why the U.S. in fact is not, and perhaps never has been, the leading light of global entrepreneurship. It's even less clear whether any of the proposed economic remedies, such as scrapping national health care and banning corporate bailouts, have anything to do with the situation. What is clear is that anybody who claims that America is the land of entrepreneurship is, at best, misinformed.

Image courtesy Flickr user kevindooley, CC2.0