We compare how bond market access affects firms' investment decisions in the United States and the euro area. Having a bond rating enables US corporations to invest more and undertake more acquisitions. In contrast, in the euro area, bond ratings have no effect on investment decisions....

For some privately-held firms, the costs of providing high-quality accrual-based financial statements may outweigh the benefits of accommodating the demands of their stakeholders who may rely more on cash flows or have direct access to management. For other private firms, greater stakeholder...

This paper investigates the impacts of defined-benefit (DB) pension plans on the corporate investment choices between diversifying and non-diversifying investments. We find a firm’s DB plan coverage is negatively associated with its propensity of making a major investment. Subject to a major...

Pro forma estimation of financial statements often builds on constant ratios to sales revenue. While constant ratios may be relevant for established firms operating in predictable industries, they yield noninformative and possibly misleading information when applied to new firms, and...

We examine the role of spatial proximity for Venture Capital (VC) investments in Germany. The main database is a survey of 85 personal interviews with representatives of different types of financial institutions. The analysis shows that spatial proximity is far less important for VC investments...

External finance is central for nascent entrepreneurs, people in the process of starting new ventures. We argue that nascent entrepreneurs use patents and prototypes in order to signal their ability to appropriate the returns from their innovation as well as the projectś feasibility. Our...

Europa hinkt im Vergleich zu den Vereinigten Staaten oder Israel bei der Zahl erfolgreicher Startups hinterher. Innovationsstarke Gründungen, die innerhalb weniger Jahre zu globalen Konzernen wie Google oder Amazon heranwachsen, finden nicht hier statt. In vielen Staaten und Regionen Europas...

Europe is lagging behind the United States and Israel in the number of successful start-ups. Highly innovative start-ups that grow to become global companies the size of Google or Amazon within just a few years are not being founded here. Many of Europe’s countries and regions are experiencing...

Immigrants account for about a quarter of US invention and entrepreneurship despite a policy environment that is not well suited for these purposes. This chapter reviews the U.S. immigration policy environment that governs how skilled migrants move to America for employment-based purposes. We...

This paper advances a new technique for identifying, delineating, and analyzing microgeographies. It applies this technique to locate and measure agglomerations of high-growth, high-tech (HGHT) startup activity within 205 U.S. cities. Using data from 1995 to 2018 on venture-backed companies, I...