This paper, without implication, draws on collaborative research with numerous colleagues I haveworked with in the development and analysis of the Business Formation Statistics (BFS). Theresearch and development papers for the BFS with these colleagues are cited extensively in thetext and included in the references. This paper uses only public domain data from the BFS andother sources. Thanks to Lucia Foster, Josh Lerner, Scott Stern, and participants at the 2021NBER Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy for helpfulcomments on an earlier draft and to Chris Roudiez for excellent research assistance. The viewsexpressed in the paper are those of the author alone. The views expressed herein are those of theauthor and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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