Title 13 of the United States Code authorizes this survey and provides for mandatory responses. The ASE represents an exciting public-private partnership between the Census Bureau, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA). The partnership with the Kauffman Foundation and the MBDA supported costs associated with designing the survey, developing new content, mailing to sampled businesses, data processing and editing, and developing data products for disseminating survey results. The Census Bureau collaborated with the Kauffman Foundation to use their expertise in entrepreneurship research to develop new relevant content and the resulting data products. The Census Bureau’s collaboration with the MBDA will help complete the picture of business ownership by producing modeled estimates for nonemployer businesses by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status.

GEM is a trusted resource on entrepreneurship for key international organisations like the United Nations, World Economic Forum, World Bank, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), providing custom datasets, special reports and expert opinion.

These important bodies leverage GEM's rich data, tried-and-tested methodology and network of local experts to promote evidence-based policies towards entrepreneurship around the world.

The series consists of reports and accompanying interactive data visualizations presenting entrepreneurial trends nationally, at the state level, and for the 40 largest metropolitan areas in these categories: Growth Entrepreneurship, Startup Activity, Main Street Entrepreneurship

The projects provide valid and reliable data on the process of business formation based on nationally-representative samples of nascent entrepreneurs, those active in business creation. PSED I began with screening in 1998-2000 to select a cohort of 830 with three follow-up interviews. A control group of those not involved in firm creation is available for comparisons. PSED II began with screening in 2005-2006, followed by six yearly interviews. The information obtained includes data on the nature of those active as nascent entrepreneurs, the activities undertaken during the start-up process, and the characteristics of start-up efforts that become new firms.
The interview schedule for the PSED I or II may be replicated in whole or part with the citation Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.