nep-ent New Economics Papers
on Entrepreneurship
Issue of 2005‒07‒18
nine papers chosen by
Marcus Dejardin
Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix

  1. University Invention, Entrepreneurship, and Start-Ups By Celestine Chukumba; Richard Jensen
  2. What makes a Die-Hard Entrepreneur? Trying, or Persisting in, Self-Employment By Andrew E. Burke; Michael A. Nolan; Felix R. FitzRoy
  3. Latent and actual entrepreneurship in Europe and the US: some recent developments By Roy Thurik; Isabel Grilo
  4. Determinants of entrepreneurial engagement levels in Europe and the US By Roy Thurik; Isabel Grilo
  5. Legality and Venture Governance Around the World By Douglas Cumming; Daniel Schmidt; Uwe Walz
  6. Global Engagement and the Innovation Activities of Firms By Chiara Criscuolo; Jonathan E. Haskel; Matthew J. Slaughter
  7. R&D investment, Credit Rationing and Sample Selection By Gianfranco Atzeni; Claudio Piga
  8. Import competition and the exit of firms in belgian manufacturing By Coucke, Kristien
  9. ANALYSIS OF THE DECISION MAKING PROCESSES IN NPD PROJECTS WITHIN INNOVATIVE COMPANIES. AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN THE VALENCIAN REGION (SPAIN) By Jon Mikel Zabala Iturriagagoitia; Mónica García Melón

  1. By: Celestine Chukumba; Richard Jensen
    Abstract: This paper develops a game-theoretic model that predicts when a university invention is commercialized in a start-up firm rather than an established firm. The model predicts that university inventions are more likely to occur in start-ups when the technology transfer officers (TTOs) search cost is high, the cost of development or commercialization is lower for a start-up, or the inventor's effort cost in development is lower in a start-up. We test the theory using data from the Association of University Technology Managers, the National Research Council, and the National Venture Capital Association. Licensing is more likely in general, and especially so in start-ups, by universities with higher quality engineering faculty and older TTOs. Start-ups are more likely by universities in states with larger levels of venture capital. TTO size has no effect on start-ups, but does increase licenses. Conversely, universities that earn greater licensing royalties have fewer start-ups but more licenses. The number of start-ups is decreasing in the interest rate, increasing in the S&P 500, and unaffected by levels of industrial research funding and the presence of a medical school. All of these results are consistent with the predictions of our theory.
    JEL: L31 O31 O32
    Date: 2005–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11475&r=ent
  2. By: Andrew E. Burke; Michael A. Nolan; Felix R. FitzRoy
    Abstract: The paper makes three contributions to the economics literature on entrepreneurship. We offer a new measure of entrepreneurship which accounts for variations in persistence in self-employment. We outline an econometric methodology to account for this approach and find that it is superior to probit/logit models which have dominated the literature. While our results indicate that this existing literature is good at explaining an individual's propensity to try self-employment, we find that entrepreneurial persistence is determined by a different model and unearth some new insights into the roles of early career experience, finance, role models, gender and the unemployment push effect.
    Keywords: Self-employment, entrepreneurial persistence, count data
    JEL: C25 J23
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:egpdis:2005-23&r=ent
  3. By: Roy Thurik; Isabel Grilo
    Abstract: This paper uses 2004 survey data from the 15 old EU member states and the US to explain country differences in latent and actual entrepreneurship. Other than demographic variables such as gender, age and education, the set of covariates includes the perception by respondents of administrative complexities, of availability of financial support and of risk tolerance as well as country-specific effects. A comparison is made with results using a similar survey in 2000. While a majority of the surveyed population identifies lack of financial support as an obstacle to starting a new business, the role of this variable in both latent and actual entrepreneurship appears to be even more counterintuitive in 2004 than in 2000: it has no impact on actual entrepreneurship and is positively related to latent entrepreneurship. Administrative complexities, also perceived as an obstacle by a large majority of the population, have the expected negative impact both for latent and actual entrepreneurship in both years. Country-specific effects are important both for latent and actual entrepreneurship and the comparison of 2000 and 2004 results suggests that, once all other factors are controlled for, an improvement in actual entrepreneurship in the EU relative to the US has taken place in the last four years. However, in terms of unweighted averages actual entrepreneurship remained about the same. Latent entrepreneurship dropped while this drop seems to have occurred evenly in the US and the EU member states.
    Keywords: entrepreneurship; latent entrepreneurship; nascent entrepreneurship; determinants; Europe
    JEL: M13 H10 J23 R12
    Date: 2005–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:egpdis:2005-24&r=ent
  4. By: Roy Thurik; Isabel Grilo
    Abstract: Determinants from different streams of literature and spanning different disciplines are used to explain entrepreneurial decisions. A multinomial logit model and survey data from the old 15 EU member states, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and the US are used to establish the effect of demographic and other variables on various entrepreneurial engagement levels. These engagement levels range from "never thought about starting a business" to "thinking about it", "taking steps for starting up", "having a young business", "having an older business" and "no longer being an entrepreneur". Data of two Entrepreneurship Flash Eurobarometer surveys (2002 and 2003) containing over 20,000 observations are used. Other than demographic variables, the set of explanatory variables used includes the perception by respondents of ad-ministrative complexities, of availability of financial support and of risk tolerance, the respondents' prefer-ence for self-employment and country specific effects. The most striking result is that the perception of lack of financial support has no discriminative effect across the various levels of entrepreneurial engagement.
    Keywords: entrepreneurship, determinants, nascent entrepreneurship, multinomial logit, barriers to entry, Europe
    JEL: M13 H10 J23 R12
    Date: 2005–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:egpdis:2005-25&r=ent
  5. By: Douglas Cumming (University of Alberta School of Business, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada); Daniel Schmidt (J.W. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/Main and CEPRES); Uwe Walz (J.W. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/Main and Center for Financial Studies)
    Abstract: We analyze governance with a dataset on investments of venture capitalists in 3848 portfolio firms in 39 countries from North and South America, Europe and Asia spanning 1971-2003. We find that cross-country differences in Legality have a significant impact on the governance structure of investments in the VC industry: better laws facilitate faster deal screening and deal origination, a higher probability of syndication and a lower probability of potentially harmful co-investment, and facilitate board representation of the investor. We also show better laws reduce the probability that the investor requires periodic cash flows prior to exit, which is in conjunction with an increased probability of investment in high-tech companies.
    Keywords: Venture Capital, Corporate Governance, Syndication, Entrepreneurial Finance
    JEL: G24 G31 G32
    Date: 2004–01–17
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfs:cfswop:wp200417&r=ent
  6. By: Chiara Criscuolo; Jonathan E. Haskel; Matthew J. Slaughter
    Abstract: Firms that export or, even more so, are part of a multinational enterprise tend to exhibit higher productivity than their purely domestic counterparts. To better understand this correlation, we incorporate the perspective of industrial organization that one of the main drivers of differences in productivity is differences in knowledge. We examine a new data set of several thousand U.K. enterprises covering all industries from 1994 through 2000. For each enterprise we have multiple detailed measures of knowledge outputs, knowledge investments, and sources of existing knowledge. We find that globally engaged firms do innovate more. But this is not just because globally engaged firms use more researchers. It is also because they learn more from more sources such as suppliers and customers, universities, and their intra-firm worldwide pool of information. We also find that the relative importance of knowledge sources varies systematically with the type of innovation.
    JEL: F1 F2 O3
    Date: 2005–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11479&r=ent
  7. By: Gianfranco Atzeni (University of Sassari); Claudio Piga (Dept of Economics univ. of Loughborough)
    Abstract: We study whether R&D-intensive firms are liquidity-constrained, by also modeling their antecedent decision to apply for credit. This sample selection issue is relevant when studying a borrower-lender relationship, as the same factors can influence the decisions of both parties. We find firms with no or low R&D intensity to be less likely to request extra funds. When they do, we observe a higher probability of being denied credit. Such a relationship is not supported by evidence from the R&D-intensive firms. Thus, our findings lend support to the notion of credit constraints being severe only for a sub-sample of innovative firms. Furthermore, the results suggest that the way in which the R&D activity is organized may differentially affect a firms’ probability of being credit-constrained.
    Keywords: Bivariate Probit; Innovation; selectivity; in-house R&D.
    JEL: D45 G21 G32 E51
    Date: 2005–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lbo:lbowps:2005_6&r=ent
  8. By: Coucke, Kristien
    Abstract: In this paper we investigate the different effects of import competition on the exit behaviour of different types of firms. We find that import competition in Belgian manufacturing has a strong positive effect on the exit behaviour of firms that are not part of a multinational network. However, domestic firms with outsourcing activities (through a network of independent firms) experience a less important crowding out effect. Strong import competition especially increases the exit behaviour of larger domestic firms. But also multinational firms that do not specialise their production process through sourcing of less cost efficient activities abroad, have a higher probability to exit in industries characterised by strong import competition. The finding that import competition also increases the competitive pressure between multinational firms, reflects the increased importance of specialisation of production processes and vertical oriented FDI during the last decade. Note
    Keywords: exit, import, multinational presence
    Date: 2005–07–14
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vlg:vlgwps:2005-14&r=ent
  9. By: Jon Mikel Zabala Iturriagagoitia (Institute of Innovation & Knowledge Management, INGENIO CSIC-UPV); Mónica García Melón (Departamento de Proyectos de Ingeniería, DPI, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia)
    Abstract: The decisions made during the design process have a critical impact both on the design solution obtained but also on the design process itself. It can be observed that while the way in which products are developed differs not only across firms but within the same firm over time, what is being decided seems to remain fairly consistent [2]. After a thorough Literature research many references addressing decision processes developed within the NPD have been found. In the paper by Krishnan and Ullrich [4] an extensively list the most common decisions made in each phase of the development process of new products is presented. While rigorous at a bibliographical level, this work has not been empirically verified yet. Therefore, an empirical study to inquire whether decisions considered usual in the literature were actually common within the framework of innovative companies in the Valencia region (Spain) has been carried out. The empirical study has covered a representative sample of innovative companies in this region. A questionnaire including all decisions identified was prepared and sent by mail to all the companies belonging to the sample, whose aim was to determine the frequency these decisions are usually made. At the same time this study has been used to find out the patterns of decision-making processes in those innovative companies. The analysis of the results obtained confirmed that the decisions identified in the literature do correspond to the decisions mostly made in innovative companies of the Valencia Region and that they all follow a specific pattern.
    Keywords: New Product Development (NPD), Innovative firms, decision making, survey.
    JEL: C44 D70 O32 R11
    Date: 2005–07–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpur:0507006&r=ent

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