nep-ent New Economics Papers
on Entrepreneurship
Issue of 2011‒01‒16
five papers chosen by
Marcus Dejardin
Notre-Dame de la Paix University

  1. Spatial Differentiation in Industrial Dynamics. A Core-Periphery Analysis Based on the Pavitt-Miozzo-Soete Taxonomy By Marco Capasso; Elena Cefis; Koen Frenken
  2. Perceptions, Expectations, and Entrepreneurship: The Role of Extreme Events By Tilman Brück; Fernanda Llussá; José Tavares
  3. Venture Capital and Other Private Equity: A Survey By Andrew Metrick; Ayako Yasuda
  4. How SMEs Exploit Their Intellectual Property Assets: Evidence from Survey Data By Gaétan de Rassenfosse
  5. Framing the empirical findings on firm growth By Marco Capasso; Elena Cefis; Sandro Sapio

  1. By: Marco Capasso; Elena Cefis; Koen Frenken
    Abstract: We compare the industrial dynamics in the core, semi-periphery and periphery in The Netherlands in terms of firm entry-exit, size, growth and sectoral location patterns. The contribution of our work is to provide the first comprehensive study on spatial differentiation in industrial dynamics for all firm sizes and all sectors, including services. We find that at the aggregate level the spatial pattern of industrial dynamics is consistent with the spatial product lifecycle thesis: entry and exit rates are highest in the core and lowest in the periphery, while the share of persistently growing firms is higher in the periphery than in the core. Disaggregating the analysis to the sectoral level following the Pavitt-Miozzo-Soete taxonomy, findings are less robust. Finally, sectoral location patterns are largely consistent with the spatial product lifecycle model: Fordist sectors are over-represented in the periphery, while sectors associated with the ICT paradigm are over-represented in the core, with the notable exception of science-based manufacturing.
    Keywords: Entry, exit, spatial product lifecycle, Fordist paradigm, ICT paradigm
    JEL: L25 L26 L60 L80 O18 O33 R10
    Date: 2010–01–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2011/02&r=ent
  2. By: Tilman Brück; Fernanda Llussá; José Tavares
    Abstract: We provide, for the first time, comparative evidence of the impact of various types of extreme events - natural disasters, terrorism, and violent conflicts - on the perceptions of entrepreneurs concerning some key entrepreneurial issues - such as fear of failure in starting a business venture, whether individuals expect that good opportunities are likely to emerge in the next six months, and the expected level of competition stemming from creating new ventures. The occurrence of extreme events is likely to be exogenous to the perceptions affecting it so that we can identify a causal link from events to entrepreneurs and their perceptions. Using individual-level data from 43 countries from the period 2002 to 2005, we find that neither indicator of the intensity of extreme events has a significant impact on entrepreneurial activity, when country characteristics are not controlled for. Once invariant country characteristics are taken into account, we find that Terrorist Attacks have a positive and significant impact on business creation, Natural Disasters have a positive and negative impact on entrepreneurial activity, and Violent Conflict has no significant effect. These results are consistent with differential impacts of extreme events on perception variables such as Fear of Failure, Expected Business Opportunities, and Expected Level of Competition. Our results suggest that extreme events, while costly at the aggregate level, may induce a positive response in terms of entrepreneurial activity in specific circumstances. There is hence scope for entrepreneurs, and policies supporting them, to create growth from the ruins of extreme events.
    Keywords: Perceptions, expectations, entrepreneurship, extreme events
    JEL: D84 M13 L26 O12
    Date: 2010
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1093&r=ent
  3. By: Andrew Metrick; Ayako Yasuda
    Abstract: We review the theory and evidence on venture capital (VC) and other private equity: why professional private equity exists, what private equity managers do with their portfolio companies, what returns they earn, who earns more and why, what determines the design of contracts signed between (i) private equity managers and their portfolio companies and (ii) private equity managers and their investors (limited partners), and how/whether these contractual designs affect outcomes. Findings highlight the importance of private ownership, and information asymmetry and illiquidity associated with it, as a key explanatory factor of what makes private equity different from other asset classes.
    JEL: G24
    Date: 2010–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16652&r=ent
  4. By: Gaétan de Rassenfosse (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, and Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, The University of Melbourne)
    Abstract: This paper seeks to understand how motives to patent affect the use of the patent portfolio with a particular focus on motives aimed at the monetization of intellectual property (IP). The analysis relies on data from an international survey conducted by the European Patent Office (EPO). The main results can be summarized as follows. First, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) exhibit a much stronger reliance on ‘monetary patents’ than large companies and nearly half of the SMEs in the sample patent for monetary reasons. Second, SMEs tend to use their patents more actively than large firms. Third, smaller companies generally have a higher proportion of their portfolio that is licensed but the licensing rate is significantly higher in the U.S. An American SME is twice as likely as a European SME to have a high share of its portfolio that is actually licensed, witnessing a fragmented market for technology in Europe.
    Keywords: Financing constraint, intellectual property strategy, market for technology, motives to patent, multivariate ordered models, technology licensing
    JEL: O32 O34 O38 G21 G24
    Date: 2010–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2010n20&r=ent
  5. By: Marco Capasso; Elena Cefis; Sandro Sapio
    Abstract: This paper proposes a general framework to account for the divergent results in the empirical literature on the relation between firm sizes and growth rates, and on many results on growth autocorrelation. In particular, we provide an explanation for why traces of the LPE sometimes occur in conditional mean (i.e. OLS) autoregressions of firm size or firm growth, and in conditional median (i.e. least absolute deviation) autoregressions, but never in high or low quantile autoregressions. Based on an original empirical analysis of the population of manufacturing firms in the Netherlands between 1994 and 2004, we find that there is no peculiar role played by the median of the growth distribution, which is approximately equal to zero independent of firm size. In economic terms, this is equivalent to saying that most of the phenomena of interest for industrial dynamics can be studied without reference to the behaviour of the median firm, and many "average" relations retrieved in the literature, starting from the negative relation between average size and average growth, are driven by the few dynamic firms in the sample rather than the many stable ones. Moreover, we observe the tent shape of the empirical firm growth rate distribution and confirm the skewness-size and the variance-size relations. The identified quantile regression patterns - autoregressive coefficients above 1 for fast decliners, and below 1 for fast growers - can be obtained by assuming negative variance-size scaling and Laplace growth rate distributions, and are robust to a mild positive relationship between skewness and size. A relationship between quantile regression patterns and previous findings is therefore uncovered.
    Keywords: Firm growth; Law of Proportionate Effect; quantile regression; heterogeneity; variance-size scaling.
    JEL: L11 L25 L60
    Date: 2010–01–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2011/01&r=ent

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