State economic rankings, though popular with think tanks, policymakers, media and even some academics, cannot be taken at face value, according to this article.

In this, the second quarter 2013 release of the Kauffman/LegalZoom Startup Confidence Index, startup business owners’ confidence reached the highest level since the study was initiated in first quarter 2012.

This paper finds that Kansas City and other areas viewed as “new” startup hubs actually have been fostering a culture of entrepreneurship for some time. Many of these cities have a history of strong technology sectors or experienced strong growth among technology startups over the past two decades.

State business climate rankings are popular and can be influential in policymaking. Past academic studies have criticized those rankings for being based on some subjective criteria and on state-level data. This paper proposes, first, that a business climate is an individual perception, and second, that a business climate is a case-specific condition depending on industries […]

High-tech startups are a key driver of job creation throughout the United States, according to research by technology policy coalition Engine and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Though they start lean, new high-tech companies grow rapidly in the early years, adding thousands of jobs along the way.

A newly created map of Kansas City’s entrepreneurial community points to nearly a dozen firms and institutions that have spawned a majority of the metro region’s information technology and life sciences companies.

Two white papers feature diverse examples of university entrepreneurship instruction helping students solve real-world problems.

New business formation rebounded in 2011, after four years of decline, from the depths of the Great Recession.

With support from the Kauffman Foundation and 64 other foundation funders across the nation, the National Council on Teacher Quality undertook an exhaustive and unprecedented examination of the colleges and universities producing America’s traditionally prepared teachers.

While the rebound in job creation emerging from the Great Recession is encouraging, its rate of recovery lags well behind the pace of other recent recessions. In a paper using BDS 2011 data, “Anemic Job Creation and Growth in the Aftermath of the Great Recession: Are Home Prices to Blame?”, researchers at the University of Maryland and Census Bureau explore the relation between the decline in housing prices at the heart of this recession and job creation at young firms.