A lack of entrepreneurial spirit.

The American economy is still dynamic and robust — the best in the world in many ways, and there are plenty of smart, innovative companies in Wisconsin. Think Epic Systems, Johnson Controls or Ariens.

But beneath the thin veneer of top line statistics, most of which look good right now, I see some signs for concern.

And here’s what I worry about the most: America's declining entrepreneurial spirit.

The Great Recession knocked the stuffing out of the nation’s entrepreneurs. While the rates for start-ups had been falling for decades, the pummeling of the recession caused something we haven’t seen before. For three straight years, 20092011, the number of companies closing up shop exceeded the number of companies that opened their doors. And ever since then, the annual increases have been anemic at best.

Those are among the many findings in a provocative new report on U.S. economic dynamism by the nonpartisan Economic Innovation Group.

Industrial areas such as ours should take heed.

“Even a single percentage point increase in the startup rate would tip many metropolitan economies back into expansion,” the report states. “Simply put, a less dynamic and entrepreneurial economy is one less likely to offer access to the American Dream.”

That means fewer jobs, lower-quality jobs, fewer opportunities for people to move between jobs and way more concentration of economic power in “incumbent” companies. This seems certain to be the case in the Milwaukee region.

I spoke with Steven C. Deller about these concerns recently. He is a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the co-author of a new study that found that start-ups create the largest share of jobs in the state compared with older companies. He and his colleagues have been discussing the EIG report, he wrote me in an email.

“We are particularly interested in the significant slowdown in new business start-ups,” he told me. “If new business start-ups are vital to economic growth … and start-ups are trending down, what does that mean?”

Among other findings, EIG reports that from 20102014:

• Five metro areas — New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas — produced as big of an increase in firms as the rest of the nation.

• Companies at least 16 years old increasingly dominate U.S. industry, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all jobs.

• Small metro areas in the Midwest had the lowest rates of new business formation from 2010 to 2014. Places such as Lima, Ohio; Bay City, Mich.; Fond du Lac and Duluth.

• The Milwaukee metropolitan area had one of the biggest declines in the total number of businesses, down 627 firms while gaining 33,000 jobs overall. That modest job growth still left the area down more than 16,000 jobs since 2006.

What happened to the nation’s entrepreneurs?

The EIG report blames a host of factors, including slow population growth (a key driver of new business formation); less startup capital and small-scale lending; needlessly complex regulations and tax policy; a nosedive in funds for basic research; and overly restrictive non-compete agreements, which handcuff would-be entrepreneurs to incumbent companies. And, of course, risk capital remains concentrated in places such as California, Massachusetts and New York.

What should be done to encourage risk-taking? I won’t pretend to have all the answers to that much harder question. But it’s one that the leaders of the region should be spending more time trying to figure out.