Placecasting and Nowcasting in the Spanish Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

In this paper, we perform a systematic study of all the firms created between 1990 and 2014 characterizing the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem. Our contribution builds upon a methodology using business registrations and predictive analytics to develop population level estimates of entrepreneurial quality and regional entrepreneurship potential through time (nowcasting) and geography (placecasting). To do that, we use the Entrepreneurship Quality Index (EQI), the Regional Entrepreneurship Cohort Potential Index (RECPI), and the Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Index (REAI). It emerges that the in order for an important growth event to occur, Spanish start-ups should be corporations, innovating and protecting their inventions through patents within General Purpose Technology domains like Biotechnology, and having a short name. Importantly, all indicators show a sustained growth from the early days to the entering of Spain in the Euro, then reaching a steady state, until the fall due to the economic crisis turn up leading the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a dramatic crisis.