Wealth, Tastes, and Entrepreneurial Choice

The nonpecuniary benefits of managing a small business are a first order consideration for many nascent entrepreneurs, yet the preference for business ownership is mostly ignored in models of entrepreneurship and occupational choice. In this paper, we study a population with varying entrepreneurial tastes and wealth in a simple general equilibrium model of occupational choice. This choice yields several important results: (1) entrepreneurship can be thought of as a normal good, generating wealth effects independent of any financing constraints; (2) nonpecuniary entrepreneurs select into small-scale firms; and (3) subsidies designed to stimulate more business entry can have regressive distributional effects. Despite abstracting from other important considerations such as risk, financing constraints, and innovation, we show that nonpecuniary compensation is particularly relevant in discussions of small businesses

A POGLUT1 mutation causes a muscular dystrophy with reduced Notch signaling and satellite cell loss

Skeletal muscle regeneration by muscle satellite cells is a physiological mechanism activated upon muscle damage and regulated by Notch signaling. In a family with autosomal recessive limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, we identified a missense mutation in 1 (protein O -glucosyltransferase 1), an enzyme involved in Notch posttranslational modification and function. In vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrated that the mutation reduces O -glucosyltransferase activity on Notch and impairs muscle development. Muscles from patients revealed decreased Notch signaling, dramatic reduction in satellite cell pool and a muscle-specific α-dystroglycan hypoglycosylation not present in patients' fibroblasts. Primary myoblasts from patients showed slow proliferation, facilitated differentiation, and a decreased pool of quiescent 7 + cells. A robust rescue of the myogenesis was demonstrated by increasing Notch signaling. None of these alterations were found in muscles from secondary dystroglycanopathy patients. These data suggest that a key pathomechanism for this novel form of muscular dystrophy is Notch-dependent loss of satellite cells

Owner-Level Taxes and Business Activity

In some classes of models, taxes at the owner level are "neutral" and have no effect on firm activity. However, this tax neutrality is sensitive to assumptions and no longer holds in more complex models. We review recent research that incorporates greater complexity in studying the link between taxes and business activity - particularly entrepreneurship. Dividend taxes on owners of large firms affect firm activity in models that include agency conflicts between owners and managers. Similarly, after incorporating entrepreneurs' occupational choice into the model, taxes are no longer neutral. By forsaking lucrative alternative careers, skilled entrepreneurs tend to have high opportunity costs, which make the choice of attempting to start a business of first order importance. Moreover, in models where it is assumed that capital flows across borders without cost, taxes on domestic business owners do not alter business activity because foreign capital seamlessly compensates for tax-induced declines in investments. This theoretical notion is contradicted by the strong "home bias" observed in business ownership, in particular for small firms and startups without easy access to international capital markets. Recent empirical work has emphasized that taxes have heterogeneous effects on mature firms, entrepreneurial startups, and owner-managed small firms. Lowering dividend taxes on firms with dispersed ownership has been shown to shift capital from mature firms into rapidly growing firms. Moreover, capital gains taxation tends to reduce the number of innovative startups and diminish venture capital activity, while high owner-level taxes encourage small business activity and non-entrepreneurial self-employment because such firms have more opportunities to avoid or evade taxes. To obtain efficient incentives in entrepreneurial startups, contractual terms are required that ex ante guarantee that all providers of critical inputs, especially equity constrained entrepreneurs, are entitled to a share of the resulting capital value firm. Unless properly designed, owner-level taxes prevent such ex ante contracting and thus lower the likelihood of eventual success

Differential Terminal Fucosylation of N-Linked Glycans Versus Protein O-Fucosylation in Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency Type II (CDG IIc)

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Unsweetened Notch leads to myeloproliferation

The article by Zhou and colleagues in this issue of Blood highlights the importance of Notch glycosylation in suppression of myelogenesis