the interplay of national distances and regional networks private equity investments in emerging markets integrating social network theory with the literature on national distance we examine how the investment strategy followed by a private equity pe firm in an emerging market is affected by the interplay between two important types of national distances institutional and geographic and the firm s centrality in the regional syndication network covering over 5 000 investment transactions we use a dataset of more than 500 pe firms based in both developed and emerging markets targeting three emerging market regions latin america southeast asia and eastern europe from 1996 to 2011 the results show that depending on the level of centrality of pe firms in regional syndication networks institutional and geographic distances can have differing effects both in magnitude and direction on their investment strategies in emerging markets moreover these effects are contingent on whether the pe firm is from a developed market or an emerging market we conclude that different types of national distances can operate in dissimilar ways depending on 1 firm level factors defined at the regional level such as centrality in the regional syndication network and 2 the developed market or emerging market nature of the pe firm

the driving forces of venture capital investments we have examined the volatility and macroeconomic drivers of venture capital vc investments in the past 17 years from 1995 to 2011 we find that vc investments in the united states us by the total amount by the number of deals and by the average amount per deal are significantly affected by macroeconomic factors and public market signals the fundamental changes in economic situations i e the 2000 high tech bubble the 2008 global financial crisis had substantial impact on the us vc industry in response to these dramatic changes venture firms adjust their risk preferences and investment strategies by securing fewer deals with a smaller average amount per deal in general increasing their allocations to the expansion and later stage investments and injecting a lower percent of cash in the first several financing sequences as opposed to their total committed investments to a company we also find the impact of 2008 global financial crisis and economic recession on the vc industry is somewhat different from that of the 2000 dot com bubble

exploring the core factors and its dynamic effects on oil price an application on path analysis and bvar tvp model abstract as the uncertainty of oil price increases impacts of the influential factors on oil price vary over time it is of great importance to explore the core factors and its time varying influence on oil price in view of this based on the path analysis model this paper obtains the core factors builds an oil price system var model which uses demand supply price and inventory as endogenous variables and china s net imports as well as dollar index as exogenous variables then we set up a bvar tvp time varying parameter model to analyze dynamic impacts of core factors on oil price the results show that 1 oil prices became more sensitive to oil supply changes and the influence delays became shorter 2 the impact of oil inventories on oil prices with a time lag of two quarters but has a downward trend 3 the impact of oil consumption on oil prices with a time lag of two quarters and this effect is increasingly greater 4 the us dollar index is always the important factor of oil price and its control power increases gradually and the financial crisis occurred in 2008 further strengthens the influence of us dollar

crude oil corn ethanol nexus a contextual approach this paper offers a holistic study on the complex relationships between crude oil corn and ethanol during a turbulent period between 2006 and end of 2011 through a holistic mapping of the current market situation and a contextual analytical design we show that there exists a strong relationship between crude oil and corn markets on one side and crude oil and ethanol on the other however the price relationship between corn and ethanol was revealed to be less straightforward and is driven by the us government fuel policy furthermore the study indicates that corn markets have became more prone to volatility due to ethanol production especially when the demand for corn is high and or the crude oil prices are high enough to create a competitive market for ethanol

entrepreneurship start up costs and employment abstract we study the effects of business start up costs on employment in a model with managers workers and matching we show that higher start up costs discourage entrepreneurs and increase the fraction of the population who become workers job creation suffers and employment settles at a lower level we illustrate with evidence from major oecd economies where large variations in start up costs are correlated with large variations in employment levels

testing deterrence theory rigor makes a difference there is no consensus among scholars on how to test hypotheses about deterrence systematically the disputes are sometimes rooted in differences about theory or sources of data but they are magnified by methodological confusion especially over concepts and operational definitions that produce perverse empirical results serious theoretical errors include inadequate appreciation of the role of uncertainty in deterrence as well as selection biases that undermine empirical tests rigorous examination of our previous work in light of recent criticism discloses very robust findings on the conditions for deterrence success and failure

co movement of international crude oil price and indian stock market evidences from nonlinear cointegration tests this article explores nonlinear cointegration between international crude oil price and indian stock market in a multivariate framework for the period january 2 2003 to july 29 2011 by threshold cointegration tests which determine the structural breaks endogenously the tests reject any long run equilibrium relationship among the variables for the entire data span in order to get better insight threshold cointegration tests have been applied on three sub phases prior phase i and post phase iii to most volatile phase phase ii spanning from july 2 2007 to dec 29 2008 the tests suggest existence of cointegration in phase iii only toda yamamoto version of granger causality tests reveals that movements of international crude oil price have impact on indian stock market in phases ii and iii with no feedback effect the findings also suggest that global crude oil price is exogenously determined

the board and strategy venture capital and high technology abstract in the area of strategy formulation the part played by the board of directors in high technology firms operating with funds provided by venture capital organizations has not been investigated before this exploratory study although based on a limited sample looks at some of the fundamental issues and contrasts the involvement of the board in firms of this kind with very limited involvement of the board in small conventional firms and in large publicly held corporations the relative power of management and the board of directors is of great importance in contrast with the small conventional firm and the large corporation in both of which the chief executive officer is usually in firm control of the board and generally does not look to the board for active involvement in strategy formulation the high technology firms funded by venture capital organizations are characterized by a board of directors that has high power relative to management this power can be understood not only in terms of the power of the purse high concentration of the ownership in hands external to management but also in terms of the expertise of the venture capitalists and their access to important networks the business plan which is a key element in obtaining initial funding is in effect a statement of strategy that is carefully scrutinized by the venture capitalists some of whom will assume positions on the board of directors the board is similarly involved in the revisions of business plans in conjunction with later rounds of funding the study found that the board is typically small with outsiders rather than management in control further at least some of the outside members were found to have a high degree of expertise and a close working relationship with management board meetings are frequent and deal actively with key issues and with the review of how the strategy is working and what changes in strategy may be required reviews of the business plan when a new round of funding is required or when major new product or marketing decisions are needed are examples of likely occasions for involvement of the board in strategy revisions further research should center on identifying the conditions under which board involvement can play a constructive role in the strategy process of these high technology companies some pertinent variables are suggested the next step in research should be more structured and quantitative and should use a geographically dispersed sample but field interviews will be of continuing value as a complement for firms funded by venture capital organizations the board of directors is a significant interface between the venture capitalists and the internal management group the working relationship between inside and outside directors in this arena in strategy formulation and in other major business decisions is a matter of considerable practical importance

foreign venture capitalists and the internationalization of entrepreneurial companies evidence from china we use a comprehensive database of venture capital backed companies from china to test whether and how foreign venture capitalists vcs can facilitate international initial public offerings of entrepreneurial companies foreign vcs increase the likelihood that a portfolio company will list on a foreign exchange and use a top lawyer banker or accountant when doing so the propensity to list overseas is moderated by the number of venture backers the fund s size and governance in the domestic market foreign vcs encourage foreign listings in domestic backed companies we take steps to address sample selection and endogeneity concerns overall we show that foreign vcs encourage internationalization in entrepreneurial companies

the role of informal capital on new venture formation and growth in china this study examines the nature and role of informal capital used by micro firms in the dynamic emerging market of china using a unique source of data for 260 urban entrepreneurs this study provides empirical evidence that entrepreneurs personal savings and family funding are important sources of start up capital however household income was found to be the most important funding source in driving firm growth over time this research directly addresses the lacuna of studies on entrepreneurship in emerging economies and contributes to our understanding of the critical role informal capital plays in the chinese entrepreneurial process overall findings suggest that informal capital is still predominantly used over formal capital sources for financing firm start up underscoring the slow transition in china from an emerging to a modern economy

reassessing the relationships between private equity investors and their portfolio companies the scope and purpose of this special issue is to reassess the relationships between private equity pe investors and their portfolio companies in the light of the need for venture capital private equity vc pe firms to adapt their strategies for value creation in the light of the recent financial crisis we particularly focus upon vc pe characteristics that differently contribute to portfolio firm performance the papers presented in this special issue capture this aim in various ways reflecting the heterogeneity of vc pe investors and the firms in which they invest we begin this introductory paper by providing a brief overview of each paper s contribution we articulate themes for an agenda for future research relating to the heterogeneity of investor types and the contexts in which they invest

strategy and the board of directors in venture capital backed firms abstract the results of this research demonstrate that boards of directors in venture capital backed companies are more involved in both strategy formation and evaluation than are boards where members do not have large ownership stakes these same results are demonstrated even when industry board size level of diversification and insider board representation are held constant agency theory and institutional theory are advanced as reasons for this higher level of involvement venture capitalists are generally seen as value added investors who have played a significant role in the development of many entrepreneurial businesses bygrave and timmons 1992 this success has lead students of industrial competitiveness like thurow 1992 to argue that the venture capitalist should serve as an example for directors of all types of organizations one of the most significant value added activities of the venture capitalist is involvement with strategy fried and hisrich 1995 macmillan kulow and khoylian 1988 sapienza 1989 sapienza et al 1996 rosenstein bruno bygrave and taylor 1993 implicit in the writings extolling directors who act like venture capitalists porter 1992a porter 1992b bhide 1994 thurow 1992 is the belief that they will be more active than traditional board members however little empirical work has been done to directly compare the level of strategic involvement of the two types of boards building on the work of judge and zeithaml 1992 this study compares the level of board involvement with strategy by the boards of venture capital backed companies with the boards of other types of organizations after establishing different levels of involvement it then examines why there is a difference finally this study provides additional empirical evidence on the relationship between board involvement and performance zahra and pearce 1989

oil prices and stock market in china a sector analysis using panel cointegration with multiple breaks this paper investigates the relationship between oil prices and the chinese stock market at the sector level in a panel cointegration and granger causality framework the major sectors in china are studied using data collected from july 2001 to december 2010 when the effects of cross sectional dependence and multiple structural breaks are taken into account the panel cointegration relationship between oil prices and stock prices is confirmed at the disaggregated sector level the results indicate that there is some evidence of structural breaks in the interaction between oil prices and chinese sectoral stocks the long run estimates suggest that the real oil price has a positive effect on sectoral stocks in the long run the granger causality tests demonstrate a unidirectional short run granger causality relationship running from oil prices and sectoral stocks to the interest rate for 2001 07 2005 10 there is also a unidirectional long run granger causality running from sectoral stocks to the interest rate for 2001 07 2005 10 and 2005 12 2007 06 however the long run granger causality is bidirectional between oil prices the interest rate and sectoral stocks for 2007 08 2008 11 and 2009 01 2010 12 meanwhile the short run granger causality is also bidirectional between the interest rate and oil prices

capabilities perception and escalation the evolution of crises depends upon interpreting intentions under uncertainty we model crises as a game of two sided incomplete information players are uncertain about their own payoffs from war because of differences between observable and actual capabilities we derive four hypotheses testing them against crises in europe between 1815 and 1970 we show a nonmonotonic relationship between ex ante observable capabilities and the likelihood of violence in a crisis as well as the ex ante likelihood of a negotiated settlement we answer five questions 1 how do differences in observable capabilities between rivals influence the likelihood of a crisis and the escalation to violence 2 how do intangible capabilities alter the effects of observable capabilities on the likelihood of conflict and violence 3 what do national leaders learn from the responses of their adversaries in crises 4 under what conditions can deterrence succeed 5 under what conditions are the strong likely to give in to the weak or vice versa in a crisis

assessment of the relationship between oil prices and us oil stocks abstract this paper qualitatively and quantitatively analyzes the relationship between us monthly ending oil stocks position with that of west texas intermediate wti oil prices from february 1995 to july 2004 the paper concludes if other things are held constant wti is inversely related to the petroleum products ppp combined petroleum products and crude oil cppp crude oil alone crude total oil stocks including petroleum products crude oil and strategic petroleum reserves spr total total gasoline tgo total distillate tdo it could not establish a statistically significant and negative relationship with spr when run alone one percent increase decrease in cppp ppp crude total tgo and tdo leads to decrease increase in wti respectively by 0 70 0 43 0 37 0 97 0 26 and 0 21 percent oil prices are largely influenced by total crude and crude and ppp inventories levels while modestly with variations in gasoline and distillate stocks levels despite a healthy increase of over 22 percent in spr from january 2001 to april 2004 it did not result in easing of oil prices primarily because spr are meant for security of supply concern and are only released under extreme conditions by the president of united states they are neither meant for the purposes of balancing supply demand gap nor for the stability of oil prices the aggressive spr buildup in recent years is related to international terrorism geopolitical situation in the middle east particularly in iraq that encourages us government to enhance its spr to meet any short term eventuality the analyst must keep a close eye on cppp and the total oil stocks variation to forecast wti in the short run whilst gasoline and distillate influence oil prices modestly in the short run spr on the other hand are expected to play a pivotal role in balancing oil prices and in providing a critical resource for the economy in case of any major shortfall in the long run

venture capital and management led leveraged buy outs a european perspective abstract management and leveraged buy outs became phenomena of the 1980s from beginnings in the u s they quickly traversed the atlantic spreading first to the u k and then throughout europe the venture capital industry has played a crucial role in the development of buy outs in europe particularly in smaller deals in the u k the netherlands and france this paper examines three aspects of the market for venture and development capital funded management led buy outs in europe it provides a framework for analysis of the different levels of development of each country s market it examines performance of u k buy outs and addresses the extent and nature of exits throughout the paper use is made of the extensive database of european buy outs developed by the authors the main conclusions to emerge are as follows european experience can not be compared to that in the u s as a single economy there are important differences between european countries in respect of the level of buy out activity and the extent to which conditions are or will be favourable for the development of such transactions conceptually a buy out market may be considered as requiring three main factors to be present if it is to develop the generation of buy out opportunities the infrastructure to complete a transaction and opportunities for the investors in a buy out to realise their gains these broad groups may be further sub divided the generation of opportunities will be heavily influenced by attitudes to entrepreneurial risk and hence willingness of managers to buy the ownership structure of industry and hence the generation of entities which are for sale and the state of development of mergers and acquisition markets the infrastructure to complete transactions includes sources of funding both in respect of venture capital availability and the ability of banks to fund transactions the nature of legal and taxation regimes and the existence of intermediaries and advisors who can both identify and negotiate buy outs the existence of suitable exit routes comprises stock market flotation sale to another group and recapitalisation possibly through a secondary buy out many of these factors are similar to the conditions necessary for venture capital deals to develop the generation of entities for sale may take various forms with succession issues in family firms divestment of unwanted divisions privatization of public sector activities and going privates of companies quoted on a stock market being the most important this framework was used to analyze european buy out markets through a combination of interview and desk research the evidence shows that the most highly developed buy out markets and those with the greatest short term potential are not necessarily to be found in the largest economies u s investors who turn towards europe to develop their markets at a time when the u s buy out market is experiencing a downturn and european investors seeking to broaden their activities need to be aware of these differences as in comparable studies in the u s u k lbos on the evidence from our survey of 182 buyouts on average produce performance improvements u k lbos appear to undertake a greater level of new product development and asset purchase after buy out than do their counterparts in the u s and have placed less emphasis on asset disposals than u s lbos managers buying out frequently tightened up their control of working capital the results of our survey indicate support for both the entrepreneurial and agency cost reduction perspectives about buy outs with the former perhaps being somewhat more in evidence exit routes are an important aspect of the buy out market but evidence presented here indicates that buy outs are unlikely to exit in the way in which they originally envisaged in particular buy outs that initially were aiming for flotation on a secondary tier stock market have almost invariably been sold to third parties

extended deterrence and the outbreak of war successful deterrence it is argued requires a combination of military capabilities and bargaining behavior that enhances a defender s credibility without provoking a potential attacker hypotheses on the political and military conditions under which extended immediate deterrence is likely to succeed or fail are formulated and tested by probit analysis on fifty eight historical cases the empirical results indicate that 1 the military capability of the defender to deny the potential attacker a quick and decisive victory on the battlefield enhances deterrence 2 a policy of reciprocity in diplomacy and military actions by the defender contributes strongly to deterrence success and 3 a past record of backing down under pressure or intransigence in confrontations with the potential attacker increases the likelihood of deterrence failure

the might of the pen a reputational theory of communication in international disputes i present a theory of effective diplomacy based on honesty and reputations i model diplomacy as a form of cheap talk and international interactions as an infinitely repeated game in which similar states find themselves in disparate situations over time the theory explains the success and failure of diplomacy reputations for honesty make honest communication possible a state caught bluffing is less able to communicate and less likely to attain its goals in the near future these findings imply that domestic audience costs are unnecessary for international signaling and that military strength is not the only way to build credibility

social capital access and entrepreneurship we investigate the effect of social capital access on entrepreneurship social capital helps entrepreneurs to overcome resource constraints this is especially important in small communities where we often see a lack of market oriented institutions such as venture capital firms entrepreneurs gain access to social capital via club memberships combining differences in the number of individual club memberships with differences in the importance of social capital across communities we identify a causal small community mark up effect of individual club memberships on entrepreneurship assuming that unobserved heterogeneity that might influence both the individual s selection into clubs and the occupational choice to be an entrepreneur is independent of community size we find that the effect of club membership on the propensity to be an entrepreneur is 2 6 percentage points larger in small communities than in large communities robustness tests support the validity of our identifying assumption and results

how do the stock prices of new energy and fossil fuel companies correlate evidence from china abstract this study documents the return and volatility spillover effect between the stock prices of chinese new energy and fossil fuel companies using the asymmetric bekk model based on daily samples taken from august 30 2006 to september 11 2012 the dynamics of new energy fossil fuel stock spillover are found to be significant and asymmetric compared with positive news negative news about new energy and fossil fuel stock returns leads to larger return changes in their counter assets news about both new energy and fossil fuel stock returns spills over into variances of their counter assets and the volatility spillovers depend complexly on the respective signs of the return shocks of each asset the empirical results demonstrate that new energy and fossil fuel stocks are generally viewed as competing assets that positive news about new energy stocks could affect the attractiveness of fossil fuel stocks and that new energy stock investment is more speculative and riskier than fossil fuel stock investment these results have potential implications for asset allocation financial risk management and energy policymaking

small businesses and liquidity constraints in financing business investment evidence from shanghai s manufacturing sector abstract when firms experience financial hierarchy external finance if at all available is substantially more expensive than internal finance factors such as transaction costs agency problem and asymmetric information have created such a hierarchy stiglitz and weiss 1981 argue that asymmetric information between firms and potential suppliers of external finance creates adverse selection and moral hazard problems in the credit market in developed market economies this problem of a higher cost of external finance is commonly thought to be more serious for small firms because they are more disadvantaged than their larger counterparts in accessing external finance due to several factors 1 public information on small firms is generally not available and leads to the even greater problem of asymmetric information i e more severe adverse selection and moral hazard problems these information problems have excluded small firms from bond and share markets 2 due to the lack of available means of external finance small firms rely more heavily on bank loans than their larger counterparts in addition as small firms are more interested in cultivating stable relationships with a few banks in order to secure a stable supply of credit these banks become virtual monopolies by lending to small businesses and exercise their market power in lending to small firms most of existing research considers only small firms in market economies little research has been done to understand the relationship between firm size and investment financing in any economy in transition this paper makes a contribution to the literature by studying the relationship between firm size and liquidity constraints by using a firm level data of manufacturing enterprises in shanghai during the period of 1989 1992 we consider whether small manufacturing firms in shanghai are constrained by the availability of liquidity compared with their larger counterparts when they are financing their fixed investment in a transforming economy such as china or other similar transition economies external finance relies heavily on loans from banks that are fully owned by the state due to historical reasons allocations of credit are always biased in favor of state owned enterprises such a lending bias imposes an extra cost on small chinese enterprises in financing investment as the majority of them are not state owned in such an environment our empirical results show that small manufacturing firms in shanghai are actually less liquidity constrained than their larger counterparts in financing their fixed investment this surprising result is rather different from what people normally predict based on the experience in market economies we suggest three possible explanations for this peculiar finding 1 the composition of various firm size classes plays an important role in explaining the result non state enterprises which are fast growing and efficient dominate the small firm classes their successes in the markets helps them to generate enough internal funds to smooth their investment over time 2 the presence of heavy indebtedness of large state owned enterprises may deprive them of sufficient cash available for investment decision given that state owned enterprises have been making heavy losses the central and regional governments have a liquidity problem in satisfying their huge liquidity demands 3 small enterprises in non state sectors can rely on the informal credit market to obtain funds for investment although they are excluded from the state banking system however the further trade liberalization in terms of eliminating tariffs and quotas caused by china s bid of joining the wto will erode the profits of these small enterprises as imported goods will be supplied at lower prices in addition further reforms in financial sectors may also affect the supply of external finance to small enterprises in nonstate sectors the consequence may lead to a tight liquidity constraint for small enterprises in china

modeling oil price us stock nexus a varma bekk agarch approach abstract this study adds to the existing literature on oil price us stock nexus in three ways first it employs the varma agarch model developed by mcaleer et al 2009 within the context of bekk framework using west texas intermediate wti and brent as proxies for oil market and s p stocks as a proxy for us stock market secondly it modifies the model to include endogenously determined structural break using the general structure for analyzing breaks with unit roots in perron 2006 third it uses the adopted model to compute optimal portfolio weight and hedge ratios between oil price and us stocks using different sample data based on the break date on average our empirical evidence suggests a significant positive return spillover from us stock market to oil market and bi directional shock spillovers between the two markets in addition there is significant own asymmetric shock effect in both markets while volatility spillover from oil market to stock market became pronounced after the break which coincides with the period of global economic slowdown similarly the results of portfolio management differ across the sample data more importantly we find that ignoring structural break when it exists may exaggerate hedging effectiveness

the internationalization of venture capital abstract u ntil a few years ago venture capital was as american as apple pie w e had the money the entrepreneurial tradition the over the counter market and the tax structure to make venture capital practically an american monopoly today venture capital is increasingly a conduit for the flow of capital and ideas on a global basis in 1987 according to the european venture capital association more money was raised for venture capital in europe than in the united states 5 1 billion versus 4 9 billion though activity is greatest in france and the united kingdom there are now venture capital associations throughout western europe japan has venture capital firms and even china has started to think of ways risk capital can help solve its development problems

public versus private venture capital seeding or crowding out a pan european analysis abstract this paper analyzes the relationship between public and private sources of venture capital in europe and the development of the industry controlling for characteristics of the legal systems in 15 european countries over the period 1990 1996 large public participation is correlated with smaller vc industries but analyses do not support the view that public venture capitalists are acting to seed the industry or that are they crowd out private funds on the contrary public involvement seems to cause greater amounts of money to be invested in the industry as a whole we argue that the effects of public intervention whatever the motives are real and probably result from demonstrating sanctioning the social merit of venture capital and from signaling an enduring commitment to it

what makes deterrence work cases from 1900 to 1980 the use of military force to achieve foreign policy objectives is an enduring feature of international politics force or the threat of force may be used either to change the status quo or to maintain it threatening the use of force to maintain the status quo often takes the form of deterrence defined by patrick morgan as the threat to use force in response as a way of preventing the first use of force by someone else 1 deterrence sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails failures are attested to by numerous international wars of history in the nuclear age a failure could cost us our lives the conditions of successful deterrence thus require thorough logical and empirical analysis

the contingent value of social resources entrepreneurs use of debt financing sources in western china this study shows that entrepreneurs use of debt financing sources is conditioned by the resources embedded in their social networks more business or political contacts increase entrepreneurs probability of using formal financial sources and more urban ties increases their probability of using informal sources however the effects of business and bureaucratic ties are contingent on community level institutional trust and on firms age business ties have greater positive impact on the probability of using formal financial sources for older firms and for those in regions with a higher level of institutional trust while the impact of bureaucratic ties on these firms is weaker

social capital structural holes and the formation of an industry network the formation of a network is determined by the opposition of two forces the first is the reproduction of network structure as a general social resource for network members the second is the alteration of network structure by entrepreneurs for their own benefit the idea of reproduction is a conventional one in organizational sociology but has taken on increased importance due to the work of bourdieu and coleman in contrast burt stresses the entrepreneurship of individual agents in exploiting structural holes that lie between constrained positions though complementary the theories of social capital and structural holes have fundamentally different implications for network formation this paper investigates these theories by examining empirically the formation of the interorganizational network among biotechnology firms we propose that network structure determines the frequency with which a new biotechnology firm or startup establishes new relationships network structure indicates both where soci

crude oil prices and sectoral stock returns in jordan around the arab uprisings of 2010 abstract in this paper we test for mean and variance causality between world oil prices and sectoral equity returns in jordan before and after the arab uprisings that started in 2010 the testing methodology is based on the sample of cross correlation functions that are computed from the standardized residuals of a garch process our results show that the influence is not uniform across the equity sectors the oil return shocks significantly impact the financials and the services sectors while its effect is insignificant on the industrials sector this result is more pronounced in the period that follows the arab uprisings in terms of risk transfer we find that oil is a negligible risk factor however there is still a significant evidence of risk transmission to the industrials sector particularly during the arab uprisings period these results represent a unique information transmission mechanism that is useful for risk management and portfolio diversification

the impact of the affiliation of venture capital firms a survey the aim of this paper is to review the theoretical and empirical literature on the impact of the affiliation of venture capital vc firms with a particular focus on the differences between europe and the us a main characteristic of vc firms is their high level of involvement in the management of funded firms however the vc industry is composed of heterogeneous actors the literature has studied to a great degree the independent funds that dominate the us market yet there also exist vc funds affiliated with banks or with industrial firm which can benefit from synergies with their parent corporation several studies have highlighted significant differences between these types of vc firms

what do economists tell us about venture capital contracts venture capital markets are characterized by multiple incentive problems and asymmetric information in an uncertain environment all kinds of agency problems are present moral hazard adverse selection hold up problems window dressing etc entrepreneurs and venture capitalists enter into contracts that influence their behavior and mitigate the agency costs in particular they select an appropriate kind and structure of financing and specify the rights as well as the duties of both parties the typical features of venture capital investments are an intensive screening and evaluation process an active involvement of venture capitalists in their portfolio companies a staging of capital infusions the use of special financing instruments such as convertible debt or convertible preferred stock syndication among venture capitalists or a short investment horizon

staged financing an agency perspective this paper investigates the structure of outside investment in a profitable entrepreneurial venture though efficient financing the venture up front may be infeasible because the entrepreneur cannot commit to not renegotiate down the outside investor s claim once she s sunk her investment staging the investment over time helps to mitigate this commitment problem the early rounds of investment create collateral that support the later rounds we characterize the optimal staged investment path and show how it is affected by various features of the venture the predictions of the model are consistent with observations on staged financing in venture capital

is there co movement of agricultural commodities futures prices and crude oil even though significant attempts have appeared in literature the current perception of co movement of commodity prices appear inadequate and static in particular we focus on price movements between crude oil futures and a series of agricultural commodities and gold futures a comparative framework is applied to identify changes in relationships through time and various cointegration methodologies and causality tests are employed our results indicate that co movement is a dynamic concept and that some economic and policy development may change the relationship between commodities furthermore we show that biofuel policy buffers the co movement of crude oil and corn futures until the crude oil prices surpass a certain threshold

the escalation of great power militarized disputes testing rational deterrence theory and structural realism realism we test the relative explanatory power of these two theoretical approaches on the escalation of deterrence encounters among great powers from 1816 to 1984 we derive a set of hypotheses from each model operationalize them for systematic empirical analysis and test the hypotheses on 97 cases of great power deterrence encounters by means of probit analysis the results are that the hypotheses derived from deterrence theory receive considerable support whereas none of the hypotheses derived from structural realism are supported in contemporary research on the causes of international conflict the realist paradigm has been the dominant theoretical approach within this broad framework however scholars have developed at least two prominent alternative models of the conditions under which conflict is likely to arise the first approach structural realism 1 focuses on the attributes of the international system while the second deterrence theory is largely dyadic and emphasizes the resolve and relative military capabilities of adversarial states while both theoretical approaches attempt to identify the conditions under which international crises and wars are likely to arise their

institutional differences and the development of entrepreneurial ventures a comparison of the venture capital industries in latin america and asia this paper examines how differences in distinct institutional clusters of countries impact on the vital entrepreneurial activity of venture capital and how individuals organizations and their collective action in turn shape those institutions the focus on venture capital offers researchers the opportunity to view an industry that comes from a common root with strong and consistent traditions in which to examine how the differing institutional settings impact on behaviors in different markets and how the institutions themselves may change in these settings we also focus on emerging economies since such economies offer a natural laboratory to study the impact of institutional change specifically this paper employs an institutional theory perspective to examine venture capital in two regions of the world that form institutional clusters of countries latin america and asia it is found that the venture capital industry exhibits a strong consistency across many dimensions yet institutions in these two distinct settings result in significant differences in industry practice therefore this research is able to contribute to both empirical and theoretical understanding of emerging economies institutions in those environments and venture capital

deterrence the elusive dependent variable the testing of theory in international relations requires clearly articulated assumptions the specification of scope conditions rigorously formulated propositions appropriate tests and a valid and reliable data set against which to test the propositions this last requirement has generally been the most neglected dimension of research in this article we examine two prominent studies of immediate extended deterrence by paul huth and bruce russett that do not deal adequately with the problems intrinsic to constructing a valid data set for quantitative analysis t the problems are particularly acute in the testing of theories of deterrence because of the difficulties inherent in identifying deterrence successes which leave few if any behavioral traces and of inferring the intentions of would be challengers our analysis explores these problems and suggests ways of testing theories of deterrence that can reduce the threats to valid inference 2 we would like to thank the canadian institute for international peace and security and

the economics of private equity funds this article analyzes the economics of the private equity industry using a novel model and dataset we obtain data from a large investor in private equity funds with detailed records on 238 funds raised between 1993 and 2006 we build a model to estimate the expected revenue to managers as a function of their investor contracts and we test how this estimated revenue varies across the characteristics of our sample funds among our sample funds about two thirds of expected revenue comes from fixed revenue components that are not sensitive to performance we find sharp differences between venture capital vc and buyout bo funds bo managers build on their prior experience by increasing the size of their funds faster than vc managers do this leads to significantly higher revenue per partner and per professional in later bo funds the results suggest that the bo business is more scalable than the vc business and that past success has a differential impact on the terms of their future funds jel g10 g20 g24

why do venture capital firms exist theory and canadian evidence executive summary this paper investigates the role of venture capitalists we view their raison d etre as their ability to reduce the cost of informational asymmetries our theoretical framework focuses on two major forms of asymmetric informa tion hidden information leading to adverse selection and hidden ac tion leading to moral hazard our theoretical analysis suggests four em pirical predictions 1 venture capitalists operate in environments where their relative efficiency in selecting and monitoring investments gives them a comparative advantage over other investors this suggests strong industry effects in venture capital investments venture capitalists should be prominent in industries where infor mational concerns are important such as biotechnology computer software etc rather than in rou tine start ups such as restaurants retail outlets etc the latter are risky in that returns show high variance but they are relatively easy to monitor by conventional financial intermediaries 2 within the class of projects where venture capitalists have an advantage they will still prefer projects where monitoring and selection costs are relatively low or where the costs of informational asymmetry are less severe thus within a given industry where venture capitalists would be expected to focus we would also expect venture capitalists to favor firms with some track records over pure start ups

economic performance through time prize lecture to the memory of alfred nobel december 9 1993 this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

network triads transitivity referral and venture capital decisions in china and russia this article examines the effects of dyadic ties and interpersonal trust on referrals and investment decisions of venture capitalists in the chinese and russian contexts the study uses the postulate of transitivity of social network theory as a conceptual framework the findings reveal that referee venture capitalist tie referee entrepreneur tie and interpersonal trust between referee and venture capitalist have positive effects on referrals and investment decisions of venture capitalists the institutional social and cultural differences between china and russia have minimal effects on referrals interpersonal trust has positive effects on investment decisions in russia

a model of venture capitalist investment activity the paper describes the activities of venture capitalists as an orderly process involving five sequential steps these are 1 deal origination the processes by which deals enter into consideration as investment prospects 2 deal screening a delineation of key policy variables which delimit investment prospects to a manageable few for in depth evaluation 3 deal evaluation the assessment of perceived risk and expected return on the basis of a weighting of several characteristics of the prospective venture and the decision whether or not to invest as determined by the relative levels of perceived risk and expected return 4 deal structuring the negotiation of the price of the deal namely the equity relinquished to the investor and the covenants which limit the risk of the investor 5 post investment activities the assistance to the venture in the areas of recruiting key executives strategic planning locating expansion financing and orchestrating a merger acquisition or public offering 41 venture capitalists provided data on a total of 90 deals which had received serious consideration in their firms the questionnaire measured the mechanism of initial contact between venture capitalist and entrepreneur the venture s industry the stage of financing and product development ratings of the venture on 23 characteristics an assessment of the potential return and perceived risk and the decision vis i vis whether to invest the modal venture represented in the database was a start up in the electronics industry with a production capability in place and seeking 1 million median in outside financing there is a high degree of cross referrals between venture capitalists particularly for the purposes of locating co investors factor analysis reduced the 23 characteristics of the deal to five underlying dimensions namely 1 market attractiveness size growth and access to customers 2 product differentiation uniqueness patents technical edge profit margin 3 managerial capabilities skills in marketing management finance and the references of the entrepreneur 4 environmental threat resistance technology life cycle barriers to competitive entry insensitivity to business cycles and down side risk protection 5 cash out potential future opportunities to realize capital gains by merger acquisition or public offering the results of regression analyses showed expected return to be determined by market attractiveness and product differentiation r2 0 22 perceived risk is determined by managerial capabilities and environmental threat resistance r2 0 33 finally a discriminant analysis correctly predicted in 89 4 of the cases whether or not a venture capitalist was willing to commit funds to the deal on the basis of the expected return and perceived risk the reactions of seven venture capitalists who reviewed the model s specification were used to test its validity

volatility spillovers for energy prices a diagonal bekk approach abstract we examine the relationship between return and volatility as well as the covolatility spillover for energy foreign currency and stock markets using the diagonal bekk model using daily crude oil natural gas and the coal prices as proxies for energy prices the s p500 index as a proxy for the u s stock market and the eur usd exchange rate as a proxy for the exchange rate we find robust evidence for the volatility spillover effects among the three markets also in the 16 out of 20 pairwise relationships in the five markets there are significant negative covolatility spillover effects in the four pairs involving coal there are positive and significant covolatility spillover effects we conclude that the energy markets and the stock market have stronger covolatility spillovers than others

risk appetite and oil prices abstract we demonstrate that oil prices and their volatility are no longer determined solely by real economic shocks to supply of and demand for oil but are also driven by shocks originating in the economic uncertainty and risk appetite of investors that prevail in the equity market the contribution of the latter factor has become particularly remarkable since the mid 2000s to establish these results we dismantle the squared vix index determined in the s p 500 options market into the conditional variance in stock returns to proxy for economic uncertainty and the equity variance risk premium to proxy for risk appetite using threshold garch structural vector auto regression and causality models we provide evidence about the link between risk appetite oil price returns and volatility furthermore investors appetite for risk drives changes in the ovx which measures perceptions about future oil volatility but not vice versa our results provide a better understanding of the relationship between oil the vix and its two proposed components in particular we show that changes in the risk appetite of investors are an important determinant not only for the price of equities but also for that of the most important energy resource oil

an institutional view of china s venture capital industry explaining the differences between china and the west abstract institutional theory argues that institutions in general and culture in particular shape the actions of firms and individuals in a number of subtle but substantive ways the theory has been used to explain a number of significant and substantive managerial differences found in different parts of the world to date the examination of venture capital outside the us and europe however has been rather limited institutional theory also suggests that there would be differences in how venture capital may operate in other parts of the world such as asia where the culture is substantially different from the west based on interviews with 36 venture capitalists in 24 venture capital firms investing in china this exploratory research finds that china s institutional environment creates a number of significant differences from the west the article discusses the impact of these findings on future research on asian venture capital theory development and the activities of venture capital professionals in that region

legal framework quality and success of different types of venture capital investments abstract drawing on an analysis of 8 270 companies from 41 countries i explore the relationship between success of venture capital investments and legal frameworks in the investment countries legal framework quality is related to success but the effect varies with the deal type first the significant and positive relationship between legal framework quality and success is more pronounced for domestic deals than for international deals further investigations suggest that international venture capitalists often exit their portfolio companies abroad particularly when these companies are located in countries with inefficient legal frameworks in addition the results lend support to the view that international venture capitalists have a greater experience and reputation second legal framework quality seems to be more important for success in syndicated than in standalone deals this finding supports the view that a sound legal framework may improve the benefit cost balance of syndication while an inefficient legal framework may tend to increase costs in syndicated deals

financing new ventures in china system antecedents and institutionalization abstract china s system for funding new ventures is a relatively recent phenomenon emerging from decades of government led technology policy and a still transitioning business system this paper first proposes a general framework in which this financing system is defined as the country specific configuration of actors rules and practices by which investment funds are pooled investment targets identified funds invested and monitored and returns appropriated the paper uses this framework to link the centralized government system of the 1980s to today s nascent venture capital industry the analysis leads to policy and managerial implications as well as a research agenda for further studies in the chinese context and across different venture financing systems

crude oil shocks and stock markets a panel threshold cointegration approach abstract this paper proposes a panel threshold cointegration approach to investigate the relationship between crude oil shocks and stock markets for the oecd and non oecd panel from january 1995 to december 2009 nonlinear cointegration is confirmed for the oil stock nexus in the panel because threshold cointegration is found the threshold vector error correction models can be run to investigate the presence of asymmetric dynamic adjustment the granger causality tests demonstrate the existence of bidirectional long run granger causality between crude oil shocks and stock markets for these oecd and non oecd countries however the short run granger causality between them is bidirectional under positive changes in the deviation and unidirectional under negative ones moreover the speed of adjustment toward equilibrium is faster under negative changes in the deviation than that under positive ones in these oecd and non oecd countries

reliance upon informants in the venture capital industry abstract can venture capital investors rely upon informants to be forthcoming with what they know or do they need to be concerned about self serving conduct these questions are investigated among two types of venture capital investors business angels and venture capital firms the results of the present study suggest that the more either type of investor is concerned with market or agency risk the less likely he or she will be to use informal network informants business associates and friends market risk is due to unforeseen competitive circumstances whereas agency risk results from the separate and possibly divergent interests of investors and their informants investors with a higher concern for risk consult formal network informants venture capital firm investors for information about market risk but concern with agency risk is not related to the frequency of use of venture capital firm sources agency risk deals with particular self interested individuals who are unlikely to be known to the formal informant network venture capital firm investors consult formal network sources more frequently than do business angels compared to business angels they enjoy a much more efficient flow of information from their informants as they gain more experience exchanging information venture capital firm investors increase their reliance upon formal network informants because informal network informants have less experience exchanging information it is possible that some informal sources could escape being detected if they decided to act in a devious self interested manner rather than relying upon informal informants several investors indicated in face to face interviews that they prefer to perform their own due diligence business angels seem to distinguish between two types of informants close associates with whom they have had extensive investment experience and mere acquaintances to whom they are only weakly tied by a referral from a close associate or someone else it is quite likely that business angels rely upon informants who are close associates however the informants in this study were predominantly acquaintances which may be fairly typical of most business angel informants because they were acquaintances and not close associates they were not utilized much as informants venture capital firm investors rely heavily upon associates at other venture capital firms for market information because they do not trust other informants to the same extent they may wish to de emphasize their reliance upon them similarly there are indications that business angels rely upon close associates to provide them with information about agency factors because angels do not trust others for this information and may in fact have limited access to other informants they may wish to focus their search for information on business associates this would enable them to avoid the expense of investigating the reliability of other informants this research should be helpful to entrepreneurs who are searching for new venture funding it suggests that certain types of informants may be more effective in championing the prospects of a deal to a venture capitalist an entrepreneur with a technical or market advantage ought to approach a venture capital firm because the informant network for venture capital firms is highly interconnected with other venture capital firms it is likely that presenting a request for funding to one of them will quickly result in the sharing of it among their informant associates if entrepreneurs possess a market advantage they ought to concentrate on obtaining funding from the first venture capital firm investor who reviews the deal entrepreneurs who can argue that they are trustworthy or competent even if they lack a technical or market advantage ought to present their deals to a business angel using a close business associate as an intermediary a mere acquaintance used as an intermediary would be much less effective although statistical testing indicated that such an approach would not generate significant success interviews with business angels suggested that using a close associate as an intermediary would improve an entrepreneur s prospects especially if the business angel were relatively unconcerned about a deal s risk moreover using an informant intermediary to contact a business angel would avoid the need to do an initial background check on the entrepreneur

venture capital entrepreneurship and economic growth abstract using a panel of u s metropolitan areas we find that increases in the supply of venture capital positively affect firm starts employment and aggregate income our results remain robust to a variety of specifications including ones that address endogeneity the estimated magnitudes imply that venture capital stimulates the creation of more firms than it funds which appears consistent with two mechanisms first would be entrepreneurs anticipating financing needs more likely start firms when the supply of capital expands second funded companies may transfer know how to their employees thereby enabling spin offs and may encourage others to become entrepreneurs through demonstration effects

venture capitalists decision policies across three countries an institutional theory perspective this paper examines the influence of economic institutions upon venture capitalists vcs decision policies we conducted policy capturing experiments on 119 vcs across three countries representing distinct economic institutions us mature market economy south korea emerging economy and china transitional economy results show that vcs in rules based market economies us rely upon market information to a greater extent than vcs in emerging economies korea and chinese vcs transitional economy weight human capital factors more heavily than either us or korean vcs findings suggest that although professional institutions may dictate which information is included in vc decision policies the extent to which that information is emphasized is determined partly by the economic institution in which the decision maker operates journal of international business studies 2007 38 691 708 doi 10 1057 palgrave jibs 8400291

chinese management buyouts and board transformation we assess the extent to which chinese mbos of listed corporations enable a balance to be achieved between facilitating growth and supporting the interests of minority shareholders other than the buyout organization using novel hand collected data from 19 mbos of listed corporations in china a matched sample of 19 non mbos and the population of listed corporations we examine the extent to which boards of directors are changed to bring in executive and outside directors with the skills to grow as well as restructure a business we also examine the extent to which outside directors become involved in actions to develop the business rather than actions related to fostering the interests of all shareholders we find in fact little evidence that outside board members have the skills to add value to the mbo firms boards appear to focus mainly on related party transactions with some more limited attention to growth strategies outside directors do not seem to openly disagree with incumbent managers on the disclosure of their actions but may express their views and exert pressure behind the scenes

what are the drivers of business demography and employment in the countries of the european union the aim of this contribution is to establish a typology of european entrepreneurship countries with respect to variables related to entrepreneurial activity and economic development using a combin

nigerian consumer attitudes toward foreign and domestic products the nigerian consumer obsession with foreign made goods has had a detrimental effect on the domestic manufacturing industry this paper uses conjoint analysis to investigate the importance of a product s country of manufacture relative to other attributes in the nigerian consumer choice it was found that the country of manufacture is significantly more important than price and other product attributes in consumer preference nigerian consumers have a negative image of the made in nigeria label rating it lower than labels from more economically developed countries additional analyses indicate that the superior reliability and technological advancement of foreign products are the most important correlates of the nigerian consumer s likelihood to purchase foreign products implications for foreign marketers domestic governments and domestic manufacturers are discussed

social capital one or many definition and measurement three families of social capital concepts are discussed fa1 trust fa2 ease of cooperation and fa3 network in the language of game theory social capital is the excess propensity to play cooperative solutions in prisoners dilemma games the three families lead to different definitions and thus to different measurement methods some measures are theory near while others are easy to use proxies it is shown that all definitions and measures are related the social capital dream is that all definitions try to catch aspects of the same phenomenon so that all measures tap the same latent variable it is discussed whether this dream is likely to come true