Starting a firm with expansive potential is an option for educated and high-skilled workers. This option serves as an insurance against unemployment caused by labor market frictions and hence increases the incentives for education. We show within a matching model that reducing the start-up costs...

Starting a firm with expansive potential is an option for educated and high-skilled workers. This option serves as an insurance against unemployment caused by labor market frictions and hence increases the incentives for education. We show within a matching model that reducing the start-up costs...

This paper attempts to evaluate the macroeconomic impact of venture capital (VC). We test the assumption that VC is similar in several respects to business R&D performed by large firms and therefore contributes to economic growth through two main channels: innovation and absorptive capacity. The...

This paper attempts to identify and evaluate the main determinants of venture capital (VC). We develop a theoretical model where macroeconomic conditions, technological opportunity, and the entrepreneurial environment affect the demand and supply of VC. The quantitative results, based on a panel...

The paper analyses the impact of venture capital finance on growth and innovation activities of young German firms. Among other variables, our panel of firm data includes data on venture capital funding and patent applications. With a statistical matching procedure we draw an adequate control...

Using a unique, hand-collected database of all venture- backed firms listed on Germany's Neuer Markt, we analyze the history of venture capital financing of these firms before the IPO and the behavior of venture capitalists at the IPO. We can detect significant differences in the behavior and...

In this paper, we analyze the investment and divestment patterns of different types of venture capitalists. Using a data set em- bracing all venture-backed IPOs that occurred on Germany's Neuer Markt we investigate whether the governance structures, objectives, abilities and track records of...

The goal of this paper is to point out the role played by private equity investors (venture-capital companies and corporate investors) in the emergence of a new biotechnology industry in Germany in the second half of the 90?s. This analysis takes into account the different business models and...

This paper sets out to analyze the influence of different types of venture capitalists on the performance of their portfolio firms around and after IPO. We investigate the hypothesis that different governance structures, objectives, and track records of different types of VCs have a significant...

Venture capital markets are characterized by multiple incentive problems and asymmetric information in an uncertain environment. All kinds of agency problems are present: moral hazard, adverse selection, hold-up problems, window dressing, etc. Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists enter into...