As time goes by: survival analysis as a method to study topics in entrepreneurship

Abstract

This chapter aims at presenting how survival analysis methods can be used to study topics related to entrepreneurship. The availability of data that allow the identification of how long a subject is in a state, represents an opportunity to study transitions from one state to another taking into account the length of each spell. In this chapter I use the example of the time that a startup firm takes to leave a business incubator and go through the econometric specification of a continuous time parametric model applied to the study of transitions into multiple possible destinations. I also discuss some alternatives to this specification, such as the Cox Proportional Hazards model and discrete time duration models.