Actually, I think I'm wrong on the facts here; The GEM 2011 Global Report has some tables about this, but they don't copy/paste very well. The U.S. is ranked first in "early-stage entrepreneurial activity" (percentage of the population that owns or is employed by a business less than three and a half years old) among nations characterized as "innovation-driven economies" (a category that includes most of Europe, Japan, and South Korea) at 12.3%, but "efficiency-driven economies" (which includes China, most of Latin America, and much of Eastern Europe) tend to have higher values; China is listed at 24.0%,