nep-ent New Economics Papers
on Entrepreneurship
Issue of 2023‒05‒08
nine papers chosen by
Marcus Dejardin
Université de Namur

  1. Where Have All the "Creative Talents" Gone? Employment Dynamics of US Inventors By Ufuk Akcigit; Nathan Goldschlag
  2. Unlocking the Power of Accelerators: The Crucial Role of Institutions in Boosting New Venture Performance By Pramendra Singh Tank
  3. Entry Decision, the Option to Delay Entry, and Business Cycles By Ia Vardishvili
  4. Liquidity Constraints, Cash Windfalls, and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Administrative Data on Lottery Winners By Hsuan-Hua Huang; Hsing-Wen Han; Kuang-Ta Lo; Tzu-Ting Yang
  5. Microfinance institutions and female entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa: avoidable female unemployment thresholds By Simplice A. Asongu; Nicholas M. Odhiambo
  6. Carbon costs and industrial firm performance: Evidence from international microdata By Arjan Trinks; Erik Hille
  7. Why Do Some Small Businesses Offer Retirement Plans? By Anqi Chen; Alicia H. Munnell
  8. The SME-lender relationship network in Ireland By Gaffney, Edward; McGeever, Niall
  9. The role of mobile money innovations in transforming unemployed women to self-employed women in sub-Saharan Africa By Simplice A. Asongu; Sara le Roux

  1. By: Ufuk Akcigit; Nathan Goldschlag
    Abstract: How are inventors allocated in the US economy and does that allocation affect innovative capacity? To answer these questions, we first build a model of creative destruction where an inventor with a new idea has the possibility to work for an entrant or incumbent firm. If the inventor works for the entrant the innovation is implemented and the entrant displaces the incumbent firm. Strategic considerations encourage the incumbent to hire the inventor, offering higher wages, and then not implement the inventor's idea. To test this prediction, we combine data on the employment history of over 760 thousand U.S. inventors with information on jobs from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Program at the U.S. Census Bureau. Our results show that (i) inventors are increasingly concentrated in large incumbents, less likely to work for young firms, and less likely to become entrepreneurs, and (ii) when an inventor is hired by an incumbent, compared to a young firm, their earnings increases by 12.6 percent and their innovative output declines by 6 to 11 percent. We also show that these patterns are robust and not driven by life cycle effects or occupational composition effects.
    JEL: O3 O4
    Date: 2023–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31085&r=ent
  2. By: Pramendra Singh Tank
    Abstract: Accelerators are becoming popular in helping new ventures succeed. However, current research on their impact on new venture performance does not consider the role of institutional environment. This paper examines the importance of institutions and assesses the impact of accelerators on new venture performance using a generalized difference-in-differences technique on a worldwide accelerator database. The study finds that while accelerators positively impact revenue and equity funding, however the impact is higher in countries with strong institutions. The study highlights the significance of institutions in assessing the impact of accelerators on new ventures, contributing to nascent research in this area.
    Date: 2023–04–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:14694&r=ent
  3. By: Ia Vardishvili
    Abstract: I show that firms' ability to postpone entry has important implications for our understanding of the observed business cycle behavior of start-ups. I use a model that closely replicates the main features of the US firm dynamics to explore and quantify the mechanism. I find that the option to wait endogenously generates a countercyclical opportunity cost of entry: during recessions, a higher risk of failure increases the value of waiting, hence the cost of entry. The mechanism increases the elasticity of entrants to aggregate shocks five times. It is responsible for three-fourths of the observed persistent differences in the recessionary and expansionary cohorts' productivity, survival, and employment. Without the channel, existing models require either large shocks that generate excessive aggregate fluctuations or exogenous mechanisms to reconcile the observed dynamics of entrants. Overlooking this channel may also result in misleading predictions about entrants' responses to different shocks or policies.
    Keywords: Entry Decision; Delay; Option Value; Firm Dynamics; Business Cycles
    JEL: D25 E22 E23 E32 E37 L25
    Date: 2023–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:abn:wpaper:auwp2023-04&r=ent
  4. By: Hsuan-Hua Huang; Hsing-Wen Han; Kuang-Ta Lo; Tzu-Ting Yang
    Abstract: Using administrative data on Taiwanese lottery winners, this paper examines the effects of cash windfalls on entrepreneurship. We compare the start-up decisions of households winning more than 1.5 million NTD (50, 000 USD) in the lottery in a particular year with those of households winning less than 15, 000 NTD (500 USD). Our results suggest that a substantial windfall increases the likelihood of starting a business by 1.5 percentage points (125% from the baseline mean). Startup wealth elasticity is 0.25 to 0.36. Moreover, households who tend to be liquidity-constrained drive the windfall-induced entrepreneurial response. Finally, we examine how households with a business react to a cash windfall and find that serial entrepreneurs are more likely to start a new business but do not change their decision to continue the current business.
    Date: 2023–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2303.17029&r=ent
  5. By: Simplice A. Asongu (Yaounde, Cameroon); Nicholas M. Odhiambo (Pretoria, South Africa)
    Abstract: The present study contributes to the extant literature by assessing how microfinance institutions (MFIs) affect female entrepreneurship, contingent on female unemployment levels. The study focuses on 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for the period 2004 to 2018. The empirical evidence is based on interactive quantile regressions, which put emphasis on nations with high, low and intermediate levels of business constraints. The analysis is tailored to provide avoidable female unemployment levels in the implementation of policies designed for MFIs to promote female business ownership. The hypotheses that MFIs are favorable for female business owners and some critical rates of female unemployment should be avoided in order for the favorable incidence to be maintained is exclusively valid in the 10th quantiles of the cost of business by females and time to start-up a business by females. Policy implications are discussed. This study has complemented the extant literature by providing actionable female unemployment critical masses that governments can act upon in tailoring the nexus between the relevance of MFIs in the doing of business by females.
    Keywords: Africa; Microfinance; Gender; Inclusive development
    JEL: G20 I10 I32 O40 O55
    Date: 2023–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exs:wpaper:23/018&r=ent
  6. By: Arjan Trinks (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Erik Hille (HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management)
    Abstract: Entrepreneurs seem to be adapting their business operations to climate policy, instead of relocating their business to countries without or with less stringent climate policies. There is little to no evidence that climate policy has depressed the profit, productivity or turnover of an average industrial firm. This follows from a CPB study into the effect of carbon costs for approximately 3 million firms in 32 countries between 2000 and 2019.
    JEL: D22 H23 Q41 Q48 Q52 Q58
    Date: 2023–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:445&r=ent
  7. By: Anqi Chen; Alicia H. Munnell
    Abstract: At any given time, only about half of private sector workers in the United States are covered by an employer-sponsored retirement plan, and few workers save without one. As a result, many households end up with no retirement saving and entirely dependent on Social Security, while others move in and out of coverage throughout their careers and end up with only modest balances in a 401(k) account. Numerous studies have shown that offering a retirement plan is closely related to firm size; firms with fewer than 100 employees are much less likely to offer a plan than larger firms. As a result, observers tend to dismiss small firms as a source for future growth in coverage. In fact, though, a meaningful share of small businesses do offer retirement plans. This brief, which is based on a recent study, attempts to identify the characteristics of sponsoring firms and their employees to determine which small businesses may be more likely to offer a retirement plan in the future. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section describes the limited information available from data sets that focus on the firms. The second section summarizes the information about firm coverage that can be gleaned from nationally representative surveys of employees. The third section explores why many small firms do not provide coverage. Surveys suggest that financial uncertainty and lack of employee interest are real hurdles. Respondents also suggest that plans are too costly, but companies are often either poorly informed or misinformed about costs. The final section offers a two-step agenda. First, the nature of plan costs should be clarified and publicized. Second, the most comprehensive survey dates from 1998, so a new survey would be invaluable.
    Date: 2022–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:issbrf:ib2022-22&r=ent
  8. By: Gaffney, Edward (Central Bank of Ireland); McGeever, Niall (Central Bank of Ireland)
    Abstract: In this Note, we examine the relationship between non-bank lenders and Irish small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We review the relevance of non-bank lending to financial stability. We then describe the SME-lender relationship network in Ireland. We find that 36 per cent of SME company borrowers owe money to a non-bank lender, with 15 per cent borrowing exclusively from nonbanks and 21 per cent borrowing from both banks and non-banks. We also show that 71 per cent of borrowers have only one lender. Finally, we characterise the firms that rely on non-bank lenders for credit. We find that SMEs that borrow from non-banks are younger, less liquid, and have higher leverage than SMEs that borrow from banks.
    Date: 2022–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbi:fsnote:14/fs/22&r=ent
  9. By: Simplice A. Asongu (Yaounde, Cameroon); Sara le Roux (Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK)
    Abstract: The study examines how mobile money innovations transform unemployed women to self-employed women. The empirical evidence is based on interactive quantile regressions focusing on data in 44 countries from sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2004 to 2018. The hypothesis that mobile money innovations transform female unemployment to female self-employment is tested. Eight mobile money innovation dynamics presented in four categories are employed. Three main common findings are apparent from interactions between female unemployment, eight mobile money innovation dynamics and female self-employment: (i) the investigated hypothesis is valid exclusively at the top quantiles of female self-employment; (ii) the net effects are consistently negative and (iii) the corresponding conditional or interactive effects upon which the net effects are based are consistently positive. This is an indication that critical masses at which money innovation innovations have an overall positive net effect on female self-employment are apparent. The corresponding mobile money innovation policy thresholds at which the net effects on female self-employment change from negative to positive are provided. Policy implications are discussed.
    Keywords: Mobile phones; financial inclusion; women; inequality; sub-Saharan Africa
    JEL: G20 O40 I10 I20 I32
    Date: 2023–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aak:wpaper:23/006&r=ent

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