(03 October 2017) – Entrepreneurial activity appears to be recovering from the crisis as new data show that the number of new businesses created has been rising in most OECD countries.
At the same time, the number of bankruptcies has fallen back to pre-crisis levels in most of the economies surveyed. Even in Iceland, Italy and Spain where business failure levels remain higher than in 2007, the latest 2017 quarterly data point to an improvement.
In its latest Entrepreneurship at a Glance, the OECD says that of the 14 OECD countries with the most recent data (up to the first quarter of 2017), nine show total business creations trending upwards. They include Australia, Belgium, France, Hungary, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United States.
These positive signals are also observable when looking only at uncorporated businesses, with creations trending upwards in ten of the twelve countries where data are available: Australia, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.