The Local Origins of Business Formation: Entry as a Two-Stage Process

Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, or the National Bureau of Economic Research. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed (CBDRB-FY22-022, CBDRB-FY23-055, CBDRB-FY24-0354, CBDRB-FY25-0347, & CBDRB-FY26-0022). We thank Richard Beem, Zoe Cullen, Shawn Klimek, Ronit Mukherji, Sergio Salgado, Emmanuel Yimfor, participants at the Urban Economics Association 2024 Annual Meeting, Urban Studies meeting at the 2026 ASSA, NBER SI 2024, Fall 2023 NBER Entrepreneurship Working Group, the 2021 and 2022 Southern Economic Association conference, and seminar participants at Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School, and West Virginia University for helpful comments. John Haltiwanger was also a Schedule A employee of the U.S. Census Bureau at the time of the writing of this paper. We thank the Templeton Foundation for financial support.