Does America have a great edge over Europe, in entrepreneurialism?

Maybe---though the gap isn't quite as broad as you might guess, according to this infographic produced by Grasshopper.com:

Let's zoom in the relevant details. According to the data, the U.S. is far ahead of any other country in the portion of our GDP that comes from entrepreneurship--11.3%, compared to our next closest competitor, the U.K., which clocks in at 6.3%. This can be interpreted two ways: Either we've had a longer history of entrepreneurship--and other countries are perhaps catching up--or we simply make it easier for entrepreneurs to create viable businesses.

But what does the U.S. have that other country's don't? It's not, apparently, lower barriers to starting a business. And it's not that we have proportionally more smart, ambitious immigrants starting new business. But we do have more entrepreneurs--and they're among the sunniest, most optimistic people in the world. Here's a detail of the U.S.:

And perhaps our closet competitors, The Netherlands:

And The U.K.:

From the data, you can surmise that no other Western country can beat the U.S.'s blend of a huge entrepreneurial population, armed the world-beating optimism that might carry them through to success.

Check out the full chart here.