The Entrepreneurship Policy Map

Advancing Entrepreneurship at Every Stage

Entrepreneurship drives new business and job creation, spurs innovation that boosts living standards and creates opportunities for upward economic mobility. The question is: Does policy support entrepreneurs in this process, or make it harder?

To answer that question, we first need to understand that entrepreneurship is a varied and complex pursuit. To put it another way, starting a business presents different challenges than running a business, than growing a business. To both effectively measure entrepreneurship and target policies where they can have the greatest impact, it is important to differentiate between various aspects of entrepreneurship.

The Entrepreneurship Policy Map focuses on the policy needs of three stages of entrepreneurship (to learn more about these stages, consult the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurship Series):

• New business creation,
• Local small business activity, and
• Growing and high-growth firms.

Download a blank map and fill in the policy areas that you see as barriers and pathways to assisting entrepreneurs.