A critical assessment of the National Entrepreneurship Context Index of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor

Abstract: Data collected through the National Expert Survey (NES) of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) are widely used to assess the quality and impact of national entrepreneurial ecosystems. By focusing on the measurement of the National Entrepreneurship Context Index (NECI), we argue and show that the subjective nature of the responses of the national experts precludes meaningful cross-country analyses and cross-country rankings. Moreover, we show that the limited precision of the NECI severely constraints the longitudinal assessment of within-country trends. We provide recommendations for the current use of NECI data and suggestions for future NES data collections.