A new report from Harvard asks "Why are some metropolitan areas so much more entrepreneurial than others? Silicon Valley seems almost magically entrepreneurial with a new startup on every street corner, but in declining Rust Belt cities such startups are far and few between."

The report notes a close correlation with regional economic growth.

The new Policy Brief published by Harvard’s Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, which is sponsoring a series of talks on geography and entrepreneurship, economists Edward Glaeser and William Kerr report that high levels of entrepreneurship are closely correlated with regional economic growth, which means that local policy makers who are looking for ways to rev the economic engines of their cities often are interested in policies that can generate more entrepreneurship. Read more.