This paper uses entrepreneurs’survival expectations around the time of market entry and subsequent venture exits to study entrepreneurial optimism. Using data on a large number of nascent entrepreneurs in the US and start-ups in Finland, we find that new entrepreneurs survival beliefs are on...

Lack of capital has for long, if not always, been perceived as one of the most important impediments to economic activity in Finland the Achilles heel of the Finnish economy. This volume takes a long-term perspective on this perception. It considers how the Finnish financial system and the...

The study investigates, by using econometric evaluation methods, how the usage of Fin-pros (a public agency promoting internationalization of business) services impacts on the internation-alization and performance of small and medium-sized firms in Finland. We measure internationalization and...

Finpro is an expert service organization, partly financed from public funds, providing services for internationalization - market information, consulting and advice, business development, and other related services. It is one of the largest organizations in the Finnish innovation and business...

The study investigates, by using econometric evaluation methods, how the usage of Finpro's (a public agency promoting internationalization of business) services impacts on the internationalization and performance of small and medium-sized firms in Finland. We measure internationalization and...

Using recently collected data on Finnish small businesses, we provide evidence that the debt capacity of growth options, defined as the amount of debt that firms optimally raise for an incremental project, is negative, especially in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. We...

Tässä raportissa kuvataan suomalaisten näkemyksiä yrittäjyydestä uravaihtoehtona hyödyntäen useita eri kyselyaineistoja. Kansainvälisesti vertaillen suomalaisten halu ryhtyä yrittäjäksi on laimeaa. Kyselyaineistojen valossa vaikuttaa siltä, että yrittäjäksi ei ryhdytä...

There is considerable consensus in the literature that entrepreneurs are prone to unrealistic optimism. Our new field evidence from a sample of four-month-old start-ups echoes this finding: as many as 87% of new entrepreneurs expect to survive at least three years in business, whereas the actual...

Using new data originating from a recently conducted survey, this paper examines the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in private equity and debt markets in Finland. We find that the three most important sources of funds are the principal owner’s equity, trade credit...