Aston University - Entrepreneurial spirit crunched

There was a dramatic decline in the number of people from the world's richest nations launching businesses during the economic downturn, research has shown. The UK component of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project, which involved interviews with more than 180,000 people in 54 countries, was directed by Mark Hart, professor of small business and entrepreneurship at Aston University's Economics and Strategy Group. It found that there was a 10 per cent fall in would-be entrepreneurs from wealthy nations starting up businesses between 2006-07 and 2008-09.