Abstract

The IAB-ZEW Start-up Panel (with its predecessor project "KfW-ZEW Start-up Panel") has been in existence since 2008 and is jointly maintained by the IAB and the Leibnitz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW). It enables well-founded analyses of the development of newly founded companies and their survival and failure probabilities. In addition, the Start-up Panel has great potential for cross-sectional analyses due to the high average number of firms per survey wave (approx. 6,000). Another reason for the considerable analytic potential is that the planned Start-up Panel contains a disproportionately large proportion (up to 50%) of start-ups from the high-tech industries. This allows highly differentiated studies of these start-ups, which are classified as particularly important for the dynamics and international competitiveness of national economies. An important reason for promoting start-ups is the expectation that they will create new, high-quality and sustainable jobs. However, it is not possible to obtain the data needed for in-depth analyses of jobs created in young enterprises and their quality by telephone interviews. The IAB and ZEW are therefore working together to expand and continue a data set that links the survey data from the IAB/ZEW Start-up Panel with the employment data from the BA's employment statistics (linked employer-employee data set, LEE). This LEE dataset makes it possible to conduct sound analyses of employees in young enterprises and of the relationship between employment on the one hand and the characteristics of young enterprises and their founders and owners on the other. In addition, the founders’ employment biographies are also examined as far as possible.