The Entry into and Exit out of Self-employment and Business Ownership in Canada - ARCHIVED

Entrepreneurial activity has long been argued as an important driver of innovation, job creation, and productivity growth. However, measuring entrepreneurial activity is not easy. Using a newly developed administrative database of firms and workers, the Canadian Employer–Employee Dynamics Database (CEEDD), over the period from 2001 to 2013, this paper distinguishes incorporated self-employment from unincorporated self-employment, and compares the entry and exit dynamics of the two types of self-employment by age, gender and province. The large number of observations in CEEDD and its longitudinal nature make this detailed analysis possible.