Foreword

Entrepreneurship at a Glance presents key indicators on entrepreneurship. Until recently, most entrepreneurship research relied on ad hoc data compilations developed to support specific projects and virtually no official statistics on the subject existed. The collection of harmonised indicators presented in this publication is the result of the OECD-Eurostat Entrepreneurship Indicators Programme (EIP). The programme, started in 2006, is the first attempt to compile and publish international data on entrepreneurship from official government statistical sources. Indeed, to meet the challenge of providing new entrepreneurship indicators, while minimising costs for national statistical offices and burden on business, the programme focuses attention on exploiting existing sources of data instead of developing new business surveys.