8602420868?profile=originalWhat’s the largest driver of U.S. economic growth these days? Media attention is focused mostly on high tech and the oil-shale boom, but a new study from Stanford draws attention to a largely overlooked factor: a huge surge in the number of businesses being formed by Latino entrepreneurs.

Latinos in the United States owned an estimated 3.3 million businesses in 2012, nearly triple the 1.2 million of 1997, according to Census Bureau data. By contrast, the tally for non-Latino-owned businesses has stayed largely flat. Less than a third of that growth can be explained by a rising Latino or Hispanic population; the bulk of it reflects a step-up in business formation rates.

“Latinos have not been a drag on the U.S. economy,” said David Rivers, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, who is leading new research by the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI). “It’s more the reverse. A weak economy is holding back Latinos.” READ MORE AT FORBES

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