ABSTRACT
A central plank in Mrs Thatcher’s market-based approach to the restructuring and regeneration of the British economy during the 1980s was the promotion of a new national ‘enterprise culture’ (Department of Trade and Industry, 1988; Young, 1990; Burrows, 1991; Martin, 1991). One of the main symbols of this new ‘enterprise Britain’, and certainly the most commonly used measure of its progress, has been the small business sector, and in particular the rate of new firm formation. Available data indicate that there has indeed been a sharp rise in new business registrations over the past decade, from around 150,000 per annum in 1980 to nearly 275,000 by 1989 in England alone. However, the recent boom in new firm formation has not been a nationally uniform phenomenon, but one biased in favour of the southern regions (South East, South West and East Anglia), where new firm registration rates have typically averaged almost twice those for northern Britain (Keeble, 1990; Mason, 1991 and in this volume).
