A beacon in the night : government certification of SMEs towards banks

Policymakers around the world have created several schemes to support financially constrained SMEs. However, whether these mechanisms improve the access to external sources of finance or on the contrary crowd out private players remains a relevant question. In this paper, we study the effectiveness of a recent form of government support, called participative loan, in improving recipient SMEs\u2019 access to external financial debt. Relying on the literature about the certification effect, we develop hypotheses on the conditions under which the improvement is stronger. The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 488 Spanish SMEs that received participative loans from a Spanish government agency and a control group of 719 matched twins. We show that the former register a significantly higher external financial debt (+31.5%). The effect is stronger for smaller firms, or for those operating in high-technology sectors, which suffer more acutely from information asymmetries, and negligible for firms that already received a support from another government-supported institution. After ruling out alternative explanations, we interpret this result as a positive evidence of government certification of SMEs towards banks

Bratteli diagrams where random orders are imperfect

For the simple Bratteli diagrams B where there is a single edge connecting any two vertices in consecutive levels, we show that a random order has uncountably many infinite paths if and only if the growth rate of the level-n vertex sets is super-linear. This gives us the dichotomy: a random order on a slowly growing Bratteli diagram admits a homeomorphism, while a random order on a quickly growing Bratteli diagram does not. We also show that for a large family of infinite rank Bratteli diagrams B, a random order on B does not admit a continuous Vershik map

Direct and Indirect Government Venture Capital Investments in Europe

This paper provides evidence of the broad government presence in the European venture capital industry. Two forms of intervention are considered: first, direct stand-alone government venture capital funds and, second, indirect private funds to which governments commit funds as limited partners. The overall government presence seems to be much more important than previously documented, as we find that the government intervenes, on average, in 42.2% of venture capital investments in Europe. We also show that European countries are heterogeneous in their use of these two channels, and we consider possible early explanations for this choice of policy mix. Lastly, we provide some evidence on the consequences of these policies in terms of SME's perceived access to financing

What money cannot buy : a new approach to measure venture capital ability to add non-financial resources

Grounding our work on the resource-based view of the firm, we study and quantify the impact of non-financial resources added by venture capital (VC) on the growth performance of investee companies. While most of the literature compares VC-backed companies with similar companies that did not receive external financing, our originality stems from the use of a counterfactual of companies that received external quasi-equity financing (in the form of participative loans) but not non-financial resources. We use a difference-in-difference (DD) estimator to disentangle the effect of an injection of financial resources (which can be used by companies to acquire non-financial resources) from the contribution of the unique non-financial resources brought in by VC (which companies cannot otherwise acquire). Our results are based on a large sample of young Spanish SMEs that received either VC (915) or participative loans (1551) between 2005 and 2013 as first type of financing. We find that the contribution of the non-financial resources leads to yearly increases of 12.86% in employment, 38.13% in total assets, and 54.03% in sales. Furthermore, we find that only the most experienced VC firms contribute with valuable non-financial resources

Generation of measures on the torus with good sequences of integers

Let $S= (s_1<s_2<\dots)$ be a strictly increasing sequence of positive integers and denote $\mathbf{e}(\beta)=\mathrm{e}^{2\pi i \beta}$. We say $S$ is good if for every real $\alpha$ the limit $\lim_N \frac1N\sum_{n\le N} \mathbf{e}(s_n\alpha)$ exists. By the Riesz representation theorem, a sequence $S$ is good iff for every real $\alpha$ the sequence $(s_n\alpha)$ possesses an asymptotic distribution modulo 1. Another characterization of a good sequence follows from the spectral theorem: the sequence $S$ is good iff in any probability measure preserving system $(X,\mathbf{m},T)$ the limit $\lim_N \frac1N\sum_{n\le N}f\left(T^{s_n}x\right)$ exists in $L^2$-norm for $f\in L^2(X)$. Of these three characterization of a good set, the one about limit measures is the most suitable for us, and we are interested in finding out what the limit measure $\mu_{S,\alpha}= \lim_N\frac1N\sum_{n\le N} \delta_{s_n\alpha}$ on the torus can be. In this first paper on the subject, we investigate the case of a single irrational $\alpha$. We show that if $S$ is a good set then for every irrational $\alpha$ the limit measure $\mu_{S,\alpha}$ must be a continuous Borel probability measure. Using random methods, we show that the limit measure $\mu_{S,\alpha}$ can be any measure which is absolutely continuous with respect to the Haar-Lebesgue probability measure on the torus. On the other hand, if $\nu$ is the uniform probability measure supported on the Cantor set, there are some irrational $\alpha$ so that for no good sequence $S$ can we have the limit measure $\mu_{S,\alpha}$ equal $\nu$. We leave open the question whether for any continuous Borel probability measure $\nu$ on the torus there is an irrational $\alpha$ and a good sequence $S$ so that $\mu_{S,\alpha}=\nu$.Comment: 44 page

Do laypersons conflate poverty and neglect?

ObjectiveChild neglect is often initially identified via adults who come into contact with children and report their suspicions to the authorities. Little is known about what behaviors laypersons view as constituting neglect and hence worth reporting. We examined laypersons' perceptions of neglect and poverty, particularly how these factors independently and jointly shaped laypersons' decisions about what warrants official reporting of neglect, and how laypersons' socioeconomic background related to their decisions.HypothesesWe anticipated that neglect would be correctly perceived as such, but that extreme poverty would also be perceived as neglect, with these latter perceptions being most pronounced among laypersons of higher socioeconomic background.MethodIn 2 studies, adults read vignettes about a mother's care of her daughter and rendered decisions about whether the mother's behavior met the legal standard of neglect and should be reported. In Study 1 (N = 365, 55% female, mean age = 37.12 years), indicators of poverty and neglect were manipulated. In Study 2 (N = 474, 53% female, mean age = 38.25 years), only poverty (housing instability: homelessness vs. not) was manipulated.ResultsLaypersons often conflated poverty and neglect, especially in circumstances of homelessness. Laypersons of lower socioeconomic background were less likely to perceive neglect in general and to report an obligation to make a referral (R2s ranged from 17-26%, odds ratios ranged from 2.24-3.08).ConclusionsLaypersons may overreport neglect in circumstances of poverty. Increasing public awareness of how to recognize and separate neglect from poverty may enhance identification of vulnerable children and families. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

Do children unintentionally report maltreatment? Comparison of disclosures of neglect versus sexual abuse

Background and aimsChildren's initial reports often play a key role in the identification of maltreatment, and a sizeable amount of scientific research has examined how children disclose sexual and physical abuse. Although neglect constitutes a large proportion of maltreatment experiences, relatively little attention has been directed toward understanding whether and how children disclose neglect. The overarching aim of the present study was to document this process by comparing disclosure patterns in cases of neglect to those in cases of sexual abuse.MethodRedacted jurisdiction reports (N&nbsp;=&nbsp;136) of substantiated dependency cases of neglect (n&nbsp;=&nbsp;71) and sexual abuse (n&nbsp;=&nbsp;65) in 4- to 17-year-olds were coded for why maltreatment was suspected, and for children's perceived awareness and disclosure of the maltreatment.ResultsNeglect was most often initially suspected via contact with emergency services (e.g., police, emergency medical services), whereas sexual abuse was most often initially suspected as a result of children's statements. Children evidenced greater perceived awareness of sexual abuse than neglect and were more likely to disclose the former in their first investigative interview. Perceived awareness was further associated with a higher likelihood of children's statements initiating discovery of maltreatment and disclosing in the first investigative interview.ConclusionsChildren may benefit from greater knowledge about their needs for safety, supervision, and provision in the home, which could increase the likelihood they would disclose neglect. Such, in turn, could lead to earlier interventions for children and families

On Ilyashenko's Statistical Attractors

We define a minimal alpha-observability of Ilyashenko's statistical attractors. We prove that the space is always full Lebesgue decomposable into pairwise disjoint sets that are Lebesgue-bounded away from zero and included in the basins of a finite family of minimal alpha-observable statistical attractors. Among other examples, we analyze the Bowen homeomorphisms with non robust topological heteroclinic cycles. We prove the existence of three types of statistical behaviours for these examples.Comment: This version has changes suggested by the anonymous referee. Accepted for publication in "Dynamical Systems - An International Journal". The final version will appear in http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cdss20/current#.UikiPX96-M