Description

From 2014 on, the database of the KfW/ZEW Start-Up Panel is continued under its new name Mannheim Start-Up Panel in a cooperation of ZEW with the credit rating agency Creditreform. The objective is to further develop a dataset which contains information on new ventures allowing the application of panel econometric methods for an adequate modeling of firm-specific heterogeneity. Telephone interviews are conducted once a year with approximately 5,000 young companies from almost all industries. The data survey is carried out as computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) by the entrusted market research institute Umfragezentrum Bonn (uzbonn) (Survey Center Bonn - institute for empirical social research and evaluations). The average duration of an interview is 20 minutes.

The Mannheim Start-Up Panel offers the possibility to conduct a profound analysis of the temporal development of newly founded companies. 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 Mannheim Start-Up Panel belong to the technology- and knowledge-intensive sectors of the manufacturing and services industries. This allows for differentiated analyses of new ventures from these sectors which are often labeled as particularly important for the dynamics and competitiveness of the economy.