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500,000 businesses a year means we’re not talking about high-tech startups alone. This entire article seems to be using a single statistic (100,000 fewer busin

500,000 businesses a year means we’re not talking about high-tech startups alone. This entire article seems to be using a single statistic (100,000 fewer businesses are started per year now as compared to before the recession) to push an agenda. It talks about how useful these businesses are in employing the less-educated and as an entry point to the middle class, and then talks about YouTube and Instagram without acknowledging those are two very different types of business. I would be interested in seeing a breakdown by sector. My guess is that the number of new restaurants, laundromats, and nail salons has decreased the most, and that’s what’s driving the overall decline. And, rather than being the result of pressure from the Googles and Facebooks, it’s a natural result of the recession. Fewer people have the nest eggs to start a capital-intensive business, and fewer people have homes to use as collateral. Credit is harder to come by. And potential customers have less disposable income to shop with. All of these trends are well-established and seem to have a broader impact than the main points of the article.

lkrubner 9y ago
Remember the trend is almost 40 years old, starting in 1980: Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries hit an all-time low yesterday. Before you spin a story using recent events: remember long rates have been trending down for thirty odd years. And that’s true in most advanced economies. So think bigger than jobs day or Brexit or liftoff. And while I’ve got you thinking in decades not data releases … also consider that the share high-growth young firms, aggregate productivity growth, and general satisfaction have all been trending down since early 2000s. And again not unique to the United States. No single factor has a chance at explaining all these trends … Still I think a common thread of population aging and reduced risk taking is worth exploring. The idea that aging can change individual behavior is nothing new but sometimes the gradual and the familiar are easy to discount. Also, and a bit more provocatively, I want to argue that effects of population aging go well beyond the behavior and views of older individuals. ..As we age, we are less willing to take risks. In numerous studies, including my job market paper, older individuals are less willing to take risks than younger ones. In fact, I was able to see how much risk tolerance changed with age (and other factors) in decade-long panel study of older adults. Aging by a decade led to a 17 percent decline in risk tolerance. For comparison, women were 14 percent less risk tolerant than men, on average, even after taking into account several other observables including age. My main takeaway from this work was that persistent differences across individuals create more variation in the willingness to take risks than the changes within person over time. However, of the factors that seem to cause risk preferences to change, aging was by far the most robust in my data and shows up in other studies, including those with younger adults. http://www.smashcompany.com/business/the-decline-of-entrepreneurialism-in-the-usa http://www.smashcompany.com/business/the-decline-of-entrepre... Also: "Where are all the startups? U.S. entrepreneurship near 40-year low" http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/news/economy/us-startups-near-40-year-low/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/news/economy/us-startups-nea...

lkrubner 9y ago

Remember the trend is almost 40 years old, starting in 1980: Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries hit an all-time low yesterday. Before you spin a story using recent events: remember long rates have been trending down for thirty odd years. And that’s true in most advanced economies. So think bigger than jobs day or Brexit or liftoff. And while I’ve got you thinking in decades not data releases … also consider that the share high-growth young firms, aggregate productivity growth, and general satisfaction have all been trending down since early 2000s. And again not unique to the United States. No single factor has a chance at explaining all these trends … Still I think a common thread of population aging and reduced risk taking is worth exploring. The idea that aging can change individual behavior is nothing new but sometimes the gradual and the familiar are easy to discount. Also, and a bit more provocatively, I want to argue that effects of population aging go well beyond the behavior and views of older individuals. ..As we age, we are less willing to take risks. In numerous studies, including my job market paper, older individuals are less willing to take risks than younger ones. In fact, I was able to see how much risk tolerance changed with age (and other factors) in decade-long panel study of older adults. Aging by a decade led to a 17 percent decline in risk tolerance. For comparison, women were 14 percent less risk tolerant than men, on average, even after taking into account several other observables including age. My main takeaway from this work was that persistent differences across individuals create more variation in the willingness to take risks than the changes within person over time. However, of the factors that seem to cause risk preferences to change, aging was by far the most robust in my data and shows up in other studies, including those with younger adults. http://www.smashcompany.com/business/the-decline-of-entrepreneurialism-in-the-usa http://www.smashcompany.com/business/the-decline-of-entrepre... Also: "Where are all the startups? U.S. entrepreneurship near 40-year low" http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/news/economy/us-startups-near-40-year-low/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/news/economy/us-startups-nea...