Project Description

From 2014 on, KfW/ZEW's Start-Up Panel has been continued as IAB/ZEW Start-Up Panel.

Today there is no database in Germany which observes firm foundations not only on an annual basis but also continuously over a number of years. Thus, since 2008 the ZEW, the KfW Bankengruppe and the credit rating agency Creditreform cooperate to form a start-up panel for Germany. The duration of the KfW/ZEW Start-Up Panel shall be six years. The objective is to generate a dataset which contains information on young firms allowing the application of panel econometric methods for an adequate modelling of firm-specific heterogeneity. With regard to the cross-sectional dimension, telephone interviews are conducted once a year with approximately 6,000 new companies from all industries. The data survey is carried out in the form of computer-aided telephone interviews (CATI) by the entrusted market research institute, the Zentrum für Evaluation and Methoden (ZEM) (Centre for Evaluation and Methods) in Bonn. The average duration of an interview is 25 minutes.

The KfW/ZEWStart-Up Panel will for the first time make it possible to conduct a profound analysis of the temporal development of newly founded companies and their probability of survival or failure. Moreover, the panel has high potential for cross-sectional analyses because of the large average number of companies which are included in every wave of the survey. The scientific potential is also based on the fact that half of the companies surveyed by the KfW/ZEW Start-Up Panel belong to the technology- and knowledge-intensive sectors of the manufacturing and services industry. This allows for differentiated analyses of these foundations which are particularly important for the dynamics and international competitiveness of economies. In this way, the KfW/ZEW Start-Up Panel continues the work of the ZEW High-Tech Start-up Panel.