All over the rich world, new businesses are springing to life

THE LASTINGOECD effects of the covid-19 pandemic on the economy are starting to become clear. Surveys suggest that Americans who can work from home are likely to do so for two or three days a week in the post-covid world, compared with hardly at all in 2019. Companies have regained their appetite for capital spending. And the pandemic appears to be provoking a shift towards higher levels of entrepreneurship around the rich world.Economists are mainly focusing on the surge of new firms in America. But the trends are wider. Using data for a range of rich countries we estimate that in the fourth quarter of 2021 the number of “enterprise entries”—ie, newly formed companies—was 15% higher than the average before the pandemic (see chart). An extra 1m or so firms have sprung to life across the group of mostly rich countries since the first lockdowns, compared with the pace of business creation before 2020.