Entrepreneurship, self-employment and business data: an introduction to several large, nationally-representative datasets

Only a few large, nationally-representative datasets include information on both the owner and the business. We briefly describe several of the most respected and up-to-date sources of data on entrepreneurs, the self-employed, and small businesses. More information including estimates of recent trends in business ownership and performance (e.g. survival rates, sales, employment, payroll, profits and industry) from these datasets is contained in Fairlie and Robb (2008).