Haltiwanger finds decline in high-tech startups
Business activity in the high tech sector has declined substantially over the past decade, according to a new study by MPRC Faculty Associate John Haltiwanger and his co-authors Ian Hathaway and Javier Miranda. In a report funded by the Kauffman Foundation, "Declining business dynamism in the U.S. high technology sector," Haltiwanger, Hathaway, and Miranda used data from the Census Bureau to analyze business dynamics in the high tech sector from 1978 to 2011. They found that the percentage of high tech firms that are younger than five years has declined since the year 2000.
This trend parallels a long-term trend away from start-ups in the US economy as a whole. In all sectors of the economy, there are substantially fewer companies under age six than there were thirty years ago.