No 2013/19 Entrepreneurship and the Business Cycle

Do New Technology-Based Firms Differ?

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between the survival performance of new technologybased firms (NTBFs) over the business cycle and compare them against other entrepreneurial firms. Our data comprise the entire population of entrepreneurial firms entering the Swedish economy from 1991 to 2002, which we follow until 2007. Discrete-time duration models are employed to investigate whether the business cycle impacts differently on the survival likelihood of NTBFs vs. other entrepreneurial firms. Our main findings are three. First, NTBFs generally experience a lower hazard rate compared to other entrepreneurial firms. Second, all entrepreneurial firms are sensitive to, and follow a pro-cyclical pattern of survival likelihood over the business cycle. Three, when comparing NTBFs with firms without self-employees we find that NTBFs are more sensitive to business cycle fluctuations