Venture Capitalists Investment Incentives Under Public Equity Schemes

This paper analyses the impact of public equity schemes on venture capitalistÂ’s incentives to finance start-up enterprises and to support the management teams. In a double-sided moral hazard model, it is shown that experienced venture capitalists, who have already financed start-up enterprises, reduce their intensity of management support under public equity schemes. However, public equity offers inexperienced venture capitalists, who have not yet financed start-up enterprises because of insuf-ficient experience, incentives to enter the venture capital market so that they can start to accumulate experience.Double-sided moral hazard, public equity, venture capital

Venture capital and internationalization

Cross-border investments represent a substantial share of venture capital activities. We use a new and comprehensive dataset on worldwide investments to analyze the internationalization of venture capital financing. Our results from the perspectives of (i) venture capitalists, (ii) portfolio companies, (iii) portfolio companies' countries and (iv) pairs of venture capitalists' and portfolio companies' countries suggest that some factors, such as viable stock markets, boost investments by domestic as well as by foreign venture capitalists. Therefore, our results are of interest not only to academics but also to policy makers who want to foster the growth of the local venture capital industry and local companies. --Venture capital,internationalization,macroeconomic factors

Geographical and institutional distances in venture capital deals: How syndication and experience drive internationalization patterns

Drawing on a novel dataset of worldwide venture capital deals, we investigate how venture capitalists (VCs) overcome the complexity of investing in geographically and institutionally distant regions. Our results indicate that syndicating with local VCs is a common way for foreign VCs to gain deal access, overcome the complexity of investing in distant regions and offset their lack of within-country experience. The foreign VC's distance from the portfolio company ceases to be a serious investment obstacle when he can rely on a highly experienced local VC. Our results further suggest that inexperienced VCs, i.e. those VCs with a large need for syndication, increase their chances to invest across borders when they invest in small deals jointly with local inexperienced partners. --Multiple Regression Analysis,Syndicates,Venture Capital,Internationalization,Distance,Experience

Venture mania in Europe: Its causes and consequences

Over the course of the past twenty years, venture capital has fuelled an entrepreneurial revolution - first in the United States and now in Europe's common market -, which has opened new opportunities for technological innovation, capital investment and employment growth. Some of the most promising opportunities are in science-based industries, like software and biotechnology, which are often seen as driving the transformation to an increasingly knowledge- based economy. Indeed, this transformation would hardly be conceivable without the innovative contributions of business start-ups that rely on venture capital to finance their early stages of growth. So what, if anything, should governments do to support venture capital and help this transformation along? This paper will argue that governments must understand that venture capital is necessarily linked to specialization and therefore cannot be expected to play the same role in any two economies whose place, and contribution, within the international division of labour differ. --

Why do savings banks transform sight deposits into illiquid assets less intensively than the regulation allows?

For their short-term payment obligations, savings banks hold substantially more liquid assets than the liquidity regulation requires. This paper investigates whether sight deposits, an important funding source for savings banks, help in explaining liquid asset holdings in excess of regulatory requirements. We analyze whether savings banks transform sight deposits in illiquid assets less intensively than is permitted because (i) the liquidity regulation underestimates actual withdrawal rates (underestimation effect) and/or (ii) savings banks are subject to limits in their lending to non-banks that they do not offset by, for instance, medium-term interbank lending or fixed asset holdings (lending effect). In our sample, we do not find the underestimation effect to be applicable as actual deposit withdrawal rates are in most cases lower than the regulatorily specified rate. However, we find the lending effect to be at work: Savings banks with low shares of loans to non-banks do not transform sight deposits into illiquid assets as intensively as savings banks with high shares of non-bank loans. Our analysis does not only show that liquid assets positively depend on sight deposits, but also shines a light on how bank size and the individual bank's position in the interbank market affect liquid assets. --Liquid assets,sight deposits,prudential liquidity regulation

What lures cross-border venture capital inflows?

The change in the business model of venture capitalists from investing locally towards investing across borders started to intensify in the late 1990s. According to a dataset of European and North-American countries, we find that countries with higher expected growth and higher lagged stock market returns receive larger net cross-border venture capital inflows. Thus, portfolio companies located in high-growth and high-return countries receive more venture capital from foreign venture capitalists than these countries’ venture capitalists invest in foreign portfolio companies. Also, countries with lower stock market capitalizations as well as those with poor tax and legal environments for venture capital intermediation exhibit larger net cross-border inflows. These findings offer important insights for policy makers since cross-border venture capital inflows partly compensate for potential limits in the domestic venture capital supply. --Venture Capital,Internationalization,Net Cross-Border Inflows,Economic Determinants

Vertical copy camera system provides photographs from ERTS-1 imagery

Versatility of commercially-available camera system permits wide range of enlargement (up to 10X) and reduction (down to 1/8) to be achieved with standard lenses. Use of easily interchangeable camera backs permits photographic formats from 35 mm to 10.2 X 12.7 cm (4 x 5 in) and permits easy use of black and white and color films and Polaroid materials