This paper offers a quantitative description of European private equity markets and compares the recent development in these markets with the development of the US venture capital market. Moreover, the paper addresses the differences between private equity investors acting in a single national...

Using an agency framework, this paper examines advantages of offering venture capitalists a choice between public equity and loan schemes. Both schemes can be used to promote venture capital investments in hightechnology enterprises since they encourage inexperienced venture capitalists to...

Germany remains Europe's largest and most diversified source of new technology, but still lags in the fastest growing areas of today's high technology. After World War II, West-German technology policy sought to rebuild the institutions which had supported Germany's leadership in the high-tech...

Venture capital activity differs considerably across countries. Venture capital markets are highly developed in few countries, while these markets are almost nonexistent in many other countries. This paper examines the conditions that have to be fulfilled for liquid venture capital markets to...