nep-ent New Economics Papers
on Entrepreneurship
Issue of 2011‒01‒03
nine papers chosen by
Marcus Dejardin
Notre-Dame de la Paix University

  1. Creative Unemployment By Røed, Knut; Skogstrøm, Jens Fredrik
  2. Human capital and high-grow firms in Italy By A. Arrighetti; A. Lasagni
  3. Trust, Positive Reciprocity, and Negative Reciprocity: Do These Traits Impact Entrepreneurial Dynamics? By Caliendo, Marco; Fossen, Frank M.; Kritikos, Alexander S.
  4. From Basic Research to Innovation: Entrepreneurial Intermediaries for Research Commercialization at Swedish ‘Strong Research Environments’ By Kitagawa, Fumi; Wigren, Caroline
  5. Capital taxation with entrepreneurial risk By Vasia Panousi
  6. Firm entry, competitive pressures and the US inflation dynamics By Martina Cecioni
  7. Inter-firm rivalry and firm growth: Is there any evidence of direct competition between firms? By Alex Coad; Mercedes Teruel
  8. Microfinance ‘Plus’: The Impact of Business Training on Indian Self Help Groups By Bali Swain, Ranjula; Varghese, Adel
  9. The Effectiveness of Virtual R&D Teams in SMEs: Experiences of Malaysian SMEs By Ale Ebrahim, Nader; Ahmed, Shamsuddin; Abdul Rashid, Salwa Hanim; Taha, Zahari

  1. By: Røed, Knut (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Skogstrøm, Jens Fredrik (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research)
    Abstract: We examine the impact of job loss on entrepreneurship behavior in Norway. Our identification strategy relies on the use of mass layoffs caused by bankruptcies as indicators of exogenous displacement. We find that working in a company which is going to close down due to bankruptcy during the next four years raises the subsequent entrepreneur rate by 3.7 percentage points (155 %) for men and 1.8 percentage points (180 %) for women, compared to working in a stable firm. These estimates are much larger than what has previously been reported in the literature. Taking into account that many workers lose their jobs in the comparison group of stable firms also, we reckon that the full effects of displacement are even larger.
    Keywords: entrepreneurship, self-employment, unemployment
    JEL: L26 J65 M13
    Date: 2010–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5373&r=ent
  2. By: A. Arrighetti; A. Lasagni
    Abstract: Firm growth is a selective and non-homogeneous phenomenon. In fact, “Most firms start small, live small and die small” (Davidsson et al. 2005). Few firms seem to grow in a rapid way, but their contribution to employment growth is often impressive. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze both external and internal factors which can affect the probability of being a high-growth firm (henceforth HGF) in Italy. We found that HGFs are on average young firms and are present in different sectors, but the role of demand is important to understand their performance. The most original results of this paper regard endogenous determinants of fast growth. First, we found that the concentration of ownership is important for HGFs that grow in sales. Second, the quality of human capital is a strong point for firms experiencing rapid employment growth.
    Keywords: : high-growth firms, firm growth, human capital, rapid firm growth
    JEL: D24 L25 L26
    Date: 2010
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:par:dipeco:2010-ep07&r=ent
  3. By: Caliendo, Marco (IZA); Fossen, Frank M. (DIW Berlin); Kritikos, Alexander S. (DIW Berlin)
    Abstract: Experimental evidence reveals that there is a strong willingness to trust and to act in both positively and negatively reciprocal ways. So far it is rarely analyzed whether these variables of social cognition influence everyday decision making behavior. We focus on entrepreneurs who are permanently facing exchange processes in the interplay with investors, sellers, and buyers, as well as needing to trust others and reciprocate with their network. We base our analysis on the German Socio-Economic Panel and recently introduced questions about trust, positive reciprocity, and negative reciprocity to examine the extent that these variables influence the entrepreneurial decision processes. More specifically, we analyze whether i) the willingness to trust other people influences the probability of starting a business; ii) trust, positive reciprocity, and negative reciprocity influence the exit probability of entrepreneurs; and iii) willingness to trust and to act reciprocally influences the probability of being an entrepreneur versus an employee or a manager. Our findings reveal that, in particular, trust impacts entrepreneurial development. Interestingly, entrepreneurs are more trustful than employees, but much less trustful than managers.
    Keywords: entrepreneurship, trust, reciprocity
    JEL: D81 J23 M13 L26
    Date: 2010–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5370&r=ent
  4. By: Kitagawa, Fumi (University of Bristol); Wigren, Caroline (CIRCLE, Lund University)
    Abstract: The recent rise in university-industry partnerships has stimulated an important public policy debate degrading the theoretical rationale for government support for knowledge transfer/exchanges from higher education sector. This paper draws on a particular case study conducted at Lund University, which is the largest comprehensive research university in Sweden. We ask the role of fundamental research at the university and organizational responses to growing expectations with respect to its subsequent use and applications, particularly those of ‘Centres of research excellence’. We identify new forms of intermediary organizations as ‘brokers on the boundaries’ which bridge the gap between everyday scientific activities of researchers, entrepreneurial activities of academics, and more centralized forms of strategic initiatives taken by an ‘entrepreneurial university’ as an organizational actor. The paper concludes by identifying organizational strategic choices and constraints, and implications for rapidly changing higher education and research policies in Sweden and beyond.
    Keywords: Academic Entrepreneurship; Sweden
    JEL: O30
    Date: 2010–01–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2010_002&r=ent
  5. By: Vasia Panousi
    Abstract: This paper studies the effects of capital taxation in a dynamic heterogeneous-agent economy with uninsurable entrepreneurial risk. Although it allows for rich general-equilibrium effects and a stationary distribution of wealth, the model is highly tractable. This permits a clear analysis, not only of the steady state, but also of the entire transitional dynamics following any change in tax policies. Unlike either the complete-markets paradigm or Bewley-type models where idiosyncratic risk impacts only labor income, here it is shown that capital taxation may actually stimulate capital accumulation. This possibility emerges because of the general-equilibrium effects of the insurance aspect of capital taxation. In particular, for the preferred calibrated version of the model, when the tax on capital is 25 percent, output per work-hour is 2.2 percent higher than it would have been had the tax rate been zero. Turning to the welfare effects of a reform in capital taxation, it is examined how these effects depend on whether one focuses on the steady state or also takes into account transitional dynamics, as well as how they vary in the cross-section of the population (rich versus poor, entrepreneurs versus non-entrepreneurs).
    Date: 2010
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2010-56&r=ent
  6. By: Martina Cecioni (Bank of Italy)
    Abstract: This paper studies the effect of competitive pressures on inflation dynamics. To this end it derives and estimates a New Keynesian Phillips curve in a model with endogenous firm entry. The number of active firms is inversely related to their market power. By taking into account the number of competitors, the pass-through of real marginal cost on inflation is separately identifiable from the effect of endogenous desired markup fluctuations. Estimates with US data suggest that the effect of real marginal cost on inflation is stronger than that found in the empirical test of the standard model. The estimated elasticity of the desired markup with respect to the number of firms implies that an increase of 10% in the number of active firms would lower annual inflation by 1.4% in the short run.
    Keywords: inflation dynamics, markups, firm entry
    JEL: E31
    Date: 2010–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_773_10&r=ent
  7. By: Alex Coad; Mercedes Teruel
    Abstract: Inter-firm competition has received much attention in the theoretical literature, but recent empirical work suggests that the growth rates of rival firms are uncorrelated, and that firm growth can be taken as an essentially independent process. We begin by investigating the correlations of the growth rates of competing firms (i.e. the largest and second-largest firms in the same industry) and observe that, surprisingly, the growth of these firms can be taken as independent. Nevertheless, peer-effect regressions, that take into account the simultaneous interdependence of growth rates of rival firms, are able to identify significant negative effects of rivals' growth on a firm's growth.
    Keywords: Competition, Firm growth, Peer effects econometrics Length 32 pages
    JEL: L25
    Date: 2010–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2010-18&r=ent
  8. By: Bali Swain, Ranjula (Department of Economics); Varghese, Adel (Department of Economics, Texas A & M University)
    Abstract: The provision of business training with microfinance leads to a positive impact on assets for the participating households. We correct for membership selection bias and account for potential training endogeneity with propensity score matching, using data from the Self Help Group microfinance program in India.
    Keywords: India; microfinance; business training; impact studies; Self Help Groups
    JEL: G21 I32 O12
    Date: 2010–12–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2010_024&r=ent
  9. By: Ale Ebrahim, Nader; Ahmed, Shamsuddin; Abdul Rashid, Salwa Hanim; Taha, Zahari
    Abstract: The number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially those involved with research and development (R&D) programs and employed virtual teams to create the greatest competitive advantage from limited labor are increasing. Global and localized virtual R&D teams are believed to have a high potential for SMEs growth. Due to the fast growing complexity of the new product, coupled with new emerging opportunities of virtual teams, a collaborative approach is believed to be the future trend. This research explores the effectiveness of virtuality in SMEs virtual R&D teams. An online questionnaire emailed to Malaysian manufacturing SMEs and 74 usable questionnaires were received, representing a 20.8 percent return rate. To avoid the bias that may result from pre-suggested answer, a series of open-ended questions asked from expertise. This study based on analyzing an open-ended question; extract four main themes among expertise recommendations on the effectiveness of virtual teams for SMEs growth and performance. These are suitable for SMEs new product design manager to realize the key advantage and importance of virtual R&D teams in the process of NPD, which lead to increase the effectiveness of the new product's procedure.
    Keywords: Virtual teams; New product development; Survey finding; Small and medium Enterprises.
    JEL: G14 O32 M12 L7 M11 M1 O3 L15 P4
    Date: 2010–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27368&r=ent

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