The Impact of Venture Capital on Firm Growth: An Empirical Investigation

The financial and non-financial involvement of venture capitalists is supposed to be positively correlated with firm performance. This paper deals with the evaluation of the impact of venture capitalists on employment growth of new founded firms. Differences between high-tech and low-tech industries as well as the impact of other investors are analyzed. The estimation results show that surviving venture-backed firms realize higher growth rates compared to surviving non-venture-backed firms. Moreover, venture capitalists are more able to push the firms to a faster and higher employment growth than other investors. --Venture Capital,Start-ups,Employment Growth,Selection Bias,Evaluation

Do University Based Regions Really Attract Outside Entrepreneurs: The Case of the German Biotechnology Industry

The paper tests empirically the role of knowledge stocks to explain the regional distribution of Germany?s biotechnology founders. We present an unique approach to highlight the role of knowledge spillovers as we differentiate according the local embeddedness and research affinity of founders. As expected, the results of our multivariate analysis indicate a high start-up activity in knowledge intensive regions. Group differentiation shows that knowledge stock variables matter only for academic founders inside as well as outside the region. In contrast, the start-up activity of non-academic founders coming from inside or outside the region cannot be explained with knowledge intensity of the region. Our empirical results suggest that knowledge spillovers matter, but these spillovers only attract founders with high affinity to research. --Biotechnology,start-ups,economic geography,intellectual capital,count data model

Stimuliert der BioRegio-Wettbewerb die Bildung von Biotechnologieclustern in Deutschland?

Regions with biotechnology-specific knowledge seem to have best chances to attract potential entrepreneurs to establish a biotechnology-firm. Furthermore, regional oriented technology policy is supposed to stimulate the creation process of biotechnology clusters, too. The BioRegio contest (BRC) is the most prominent example for this kind of policy support. The analysis tries to test both hypotheses empirically. Our estimation results are in accordance with expectations and empirical evidence for the US: Scientists at public research institutes are key players for the commercialization of radical biotechnology discoveries in the region of their place. BRC participating regions have best conditions to attract biotech companies on average. Further, exclusive financial support of BRC winning regions does not contribute significantly to cluster biotechnology industry stronger than in non-winning regions. --Biotechnology,start-ups,economic geography,technology policy,count data model

Investment, Internal Funds and Public Banking in Germany

Previous studies argued that low investment-cash flow sensitivities of German firms may be caused by dominance of public banking.The paper addresses this topic and applies a unique accounting dataset of German firms. Results from a dynamic panel data approach show that the dependence of investment spending on internal funds does not significantly differ between firms attached to savings banks, cooperative banks or commercial banks. Thus, the importance of the public banking sector in Germany may not explain the rather low dependence of firms on internal funds and public ownership of borrowers seems not essential to reduce financing constraints.Investment, Relationship Banking, Panel Data,GMM

Firm Level Implications of Early Stage Venture Capital Investment: An Empirical Investigation

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 group of non venture funded firms. The analysis gives evidence that innovative firms will be able to close a venture capital deal with higher probability. Once the firms are venture funded, they display higher growth rates but do not differ in their innovative output from otherwise comparable firms. We derive strategic implications. --Firm Demography,Firm Start-Ups,Firm Growth,Venture Capital,Patented Inventions,Microeconometric Evaluation Methods

Private Equity, Investment and Financial Constraints – Firm-Level Evidence for France and the United Kingdom

The welfare effects of private equity transactions are debated controversially. We analyze the impact of expansion financing and buyouts by private equity investors on investment of portfolio firms in the UK and France – two countries with different financial systems. Unobserved heterogeneity and the endogeneity of private equity transactions financed by venture capital companies are addressed using dynamic panel data techniques. In both countries we find that portfolio firms display higher investment levels and a lower dependence on internal funds after expansion financing. Buyouts financed by venture capital companies are neither associated with a decrease in investment spending nor with an increase in the dependence on internal finance. In contrary, private equity based buyouts in the UK outperform non-private equity backed British firms in terms of both indicators. Contrasting the notion of several policy makers,we cannot detect that private equity based buyout financing yields higher financial constraints on average.Investment, financial constraints, private equity employer-to-employer, linked employer-employee

Export, FDI and Productivity – Evidence for French Firms

The decision of companies to enter international markets, either via exports or foreign direct investment (FDI), has been postulated by the self-sorting model of Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (HMY, 2004). In the strict sense, the theoretical predictions of HMY only apply to firms that become engaged in marketdriven (horizontal) FDI. Hence, in this paper we apply more precise methodologies to test the HMY hypothesis. First, we classify MNEs according to the underlying motives for investing abroad (market-driven vs. resource-driven FDI). Second, we highlight the role of productivity growth in the post-entry period.Our findings suggest that productivity affects the FDI decision considerably whereas expected feedback and learning effects of FDI on productivity are remarkably lower.We further detect that more market-driven MNEs exhibit a higher productivity than comparatively less market-driven MNEs.Foreign direct investment, horizontal and vertical FDI, multinational enterprises, productivity

Home Firm Performance after Foreign Investments and Divestitures

‘Being international’ has nearly become an undisputed aim for firms in a globalized world. Several papers find a positive relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and the home performance of firms. In this paper we address the “FDI – export” relationship to better understand this pattern. Furthermore, by presenting first results on firm’s post-divestiture employment growth at home we are able to provide a more comprehensive view on fi rm performance after stepping in and out of foreign markets. We apply a propensity score matching technique in combination with a difference-in-difference estimator to analyze the performance dynamics of French firms that invested abroad or carried out foreign divestitures during the period 2000-2007. FDI has on average a positive home firm eff ect in terms of export share, operating turnover and employment. Industry differences reveal that firms in high-tech industries experience a strong increase in their home performance, whereas firm performance in low-tech industries increases only moderately in post-investment periods. In contrast, the divestiture impact on the post-divestiture performance is rather negligible.Foreign markets; entry and exit; firm performance

Does R&D-infrastructure attract high-tech start-ups?

Our research, based on the ZEW-Foundation Panel East, examines whether high-tech start-ups are mainly founded in scientific and infrastructural well suited regions or not. Estimation results on the level of postcode areas confirm the hypothesis that specific human capital, knowledge spillovers at higher-education institutions are more important for founding a firm in one of the high-tech sectors compared with the effects of other publicly financed institutions. The existence of large companies in the manufacturing sector has a considerable effect for start-up activities in this region in general. Moreover, high-tech start-ups are more concentrated within or near technology and foundation centres. --High Technology Industries,Eastern Germany,Start-ups,entrepreneurs

Influence of surface tension on the conical miniscus of a magnetic fluid in the field of a current-carrying wire

We study the influence of surface tension on the shape of the conical miniscus built up by a magnetic fluid surrounding a current-carrying wire. Minimization of the total energy of the system leads to a singular second order boundary value problem for the function $\zeta(r)$ describing the axially symmetric shape of the free surface. An appropriate transformation regularizes the problem and allows a straightforward numerical solution. We also study the effects a superimposed second liquid, a nonlinear magnetization law of the magnetic fluid, and the influence of the diameter of the wire on the free surface profile