The stock market return and the risk of 33 quoted European venture capital companies during the period 1977-1991 are studied. The return is negative on average with eight of the 33 companies having a return that is higher than the market return. However, the systematic risk (measured by the beta...

There is ample empirical evidence that investments in (public) companies are correlated with cash flow. This may either be explained as evidence of financing constraints (Fazzari, Hubbard and Petersen, 1988), as excessive conservatism by managers, restraining investments to the internally...