estimates of the returns to quality and coauthorship in economic academia salaries of academic economists are studied to determine if individuals receive differential returns to publishing articles of varying quality and to coauthored versus single authored articles estimates based on detailed data and a flexible nonlinear least squares procedure indicate that substantial returns to quality exist and that an individual s return from a coauthored paper with n authors is approximately 1 n times that of a single authored paper

the influence of guided preparation on the long term performance of new ventures this article further develops a theory of guided preparation and new venture performance and tests its fundamental relationships on a sample of 159 new ventures that received outsider assistance 5 9 years earlier and had been in business for 3 8 years the results suggest that the long term growth of the ventures since start up is significantly related to guided preparation however a curvilinear model rather than a linear model was found to best capture the relationships of interest this suggests that there are diminishing marginal returns associated with guided preparation and that too much may even have a negative influence on performance

current publication lags in economics journals phe economics profession depends to a large degree upon its scholarly journals to disseminate the results and applications of its recently completed research the journal of economic literature is in fact evidence of that dependence much of the contents of each issue is devoted to an indexing of the current articles to facilitate both access to primary sources and quick cross referencing with related material but how recent are the results reported in the current literature how long does it usually take for a piece of research to evolve from a submitted manuscript to a published article to my knowledge only one study has confronted this question directly and it was published nearly 15 years ago in that study robert coe and irwin weinstock 1967 p 40 reported an average lag between submission and publication of 250 days 8 2 months for articles published in 1966 what has happened since there are no formal surveys to support the suspicion but there is evidence to suggest that the lags have actually increased some journals have begun to charge submission fees ostensibly to reduce the number of manuscripts they must review a plethora of specialized journals have emerged to provide new outlets for specialized papers and to relieve some of the burden from the traditional journals of more general scope one new journal economics letters has been founded completely in response to the lag problem it publishes short papers as quickly as possible in an effort to distribute at least the thrust of current research without a prolonged waiting period all of these responses to long lags lead to one question how severe are the current lags between submission and publication this brief note will report on the results of a survey that can begin to assess the current magnitude of the lag problem the major components of that problem and the success of the various efforts to alleviate it information about the lags involved in the 40 most recently published articles in each journal was solicited from the editors of 66 journals whose contents are routinely recorded in the jel twenty editors responded directly to the request and their reports formed the foundation of this study seven other journals were also in

aging and productivity among economists economists productivity over their careers and as measured by publication in leading journals declines very sharply with age there is no difference by age in the probability that an article submitted to a leading journal will be accepted rates of declining productivity are no greater among the very top publishers than among others and the probability of acceptance is increasingly related to the author s quality rather than the author s age

a theory of self selection in a market with matching frictions an application to delay in refereeing times in economics journals abstract a matching market with imperfect information is studied with imperfect information it is shown that friction in a meeting process can facilitate self selection and thus may improve the matching outcome as an application the effect of delay in refereeing time on publication outcome is analyzed in a publication process in economics journals though the delay causes efficiency loss by postponing the dissemination of new research it will better sort the papers to each journal by their qualities by preventing mediocre papers from being submitted to a prestigious journal and published by luck if an assortative outcome good papers in prestigious journals and mediocre papers in less prestigious journals is efficient the delay may actually improve the publication outcome other matching market examples are also discussed

using maimonides rule to estimate the effect of class size on scholastic achievement the twelfth century rabbinic scholar maimonides proposed a maximum class size of 40 this same maximum induces a nonlinear and nonmonotonic relationship between grade enrollment and class size in israeli public schools today maimonides rule of 40 is used here to construct instrumental variables estimates of effects of class size on test scores the resulting identiecation strategy can be viewed as an application of donald campbell s regression discontinuity design to the class size question the estimates show that reducing class size induces a signiecant and substantial increase in test scores for fourth and efth graders although not for third graders when asked about their views on class size in surveys parents and teachers generally report that they prefer smaller classes this may be because those involved with teaching believe that smaller classes promote student learning or simply because smaller classes offer a more pleasant environment for the pupils and teachers who are in them mueller chase and walden 1988 social scientists and school administrators also have a longstanding interest in the class size question class size is often thought to be easier to manipulate than other school inputs and it is a variable at the heart of policy debates on school quality and the allocation of school resources in many countries see e g robinson 1990 for the united states ofsted 1995 for the united kingdom and moshel ravid 1995 for israel this broad interest in the consequences of changing class size

entrepreneurs perceived chances for success abstract entrepreneurs involved in planning or starting firms must engage in a continuing process of appraising prospects for success these assessments presumably bear upon the preparations they make as well as at some later point whether they decide to make major changes or even to discontinue the business in this study data from 2994 entrepreneurs who had recently become business owners were analyzed to determine their perceived changes of success although previous evidence on business survival led to the hypothesis that the entrepreneurs would only be cautiously optimistic this was not the case they perceived their prospects as very favorable with 81 seeing odds of 7 out of 10 or better and a remarkable 33 seeing odds of success of 10 out of 10 in considering the prospects for other businesses like their own they perceived odds which were significantly lower but still moderately favorable based upon previous research on factors associated with new business success it was hypothesized that those who were more likely to succeed based upon their personal backgrounds and the nature of their new firms would be more optimistic however this was not the case those who were poorly prepared were just as optimistic as those who were well prepared at this point shortly after having become business owners the assessment by entrepreneurs of their own likelihood of success was dramatically detached from past macro statistics from perceived prospects for peer businesses and from characteristics typically associated with higher performing new firms the psychological literature on post decisional bolstering suggests that decision makers in many settings tend to bolster or exaggerate the attractiveness of an option after it has been chosen this coupled with the tendency of entrepreneurs to believe that they can control their own destinies implies that the extreme optimism observed here is probably a typical occurrence for entrepreneurs the findings suggest that it is probably natural to experience feelings of entrepreneurial euphoria when first becoming a business owner with the available evidence it is difficult to judge whether this leads to inadequate preparations or an inability to diagnose problems and make adjustments after the business is started this extreme optimism probably does contribute to the heavy personal commitments observed here in which the median entrepreneur devoted more than 60 hours per week to the business the entrepreneur would seem well advised to form relationships with outsiders such as board members and professional advisors who can be objective and detached in diagnosing problems and assessing objectively the prospects for the business in its current form

business experience and start up size buying more lottery tickets next time around this paper explores the determinants of start up size by focusing on a cohort of 6 247 businesses that started trading in 2004 using a unique dataset on customer records at barclays bank quantile regressions show that prior business experience is significantly related with start up size as are a number of other variables such as age education and bank account activity quantile treatment effects qte estimates show similar results with the effect of business experience on log start up size being roughly constant across the quantiles prior personal business experience leads to an increase in expected start up size of about 50 instrumental variable qte estimates are even higher although there are concerns about the validity of the instrument

regulatory environments and the location decision evidence from the early foreign market entries of new technology based firms new technology based firms ntbfs embarking on a strategy of rapid internationalisation choose foreign market entries that minimise transaction costs and the related risks of failure means to reduce the young firms vulnerability to the appropriation of intellectual capital are particularly important influences on early foreign market choices we explore the effect of the institutional dimension specifically the national regulatory environment on the location choices and the speed of internationalisation by british and german ntbfs we provide evidence that entrepreneurial young firms choose to enter country markets offering better regulatory protection for their intellectual property this decision is moderated by a home regulatory regime bias in contrast we observe that the speed of internationalisation is influenced less by the foreign regulatory regime and more by industry and firm characteristics we also observe that managerial experience influences the location choices of ntbfs facing regulatory hazards

gender as a determinant of small business performance insights from a british study the performance of small businesses that is the ability of small firms to contribute to job and wealth creation through business start up survival and growth has been an important area of policy and academic debate in the 1980s surprisingly little has been written about gender and small business performance our literature search revealed only a small number of studies of any substance on this subject though over forty made some mention of it most studies shied away from direct examination of quantitative performance measures such as jobs created sales turnover annual growth tending to concentrate on qualitative measures of success or failure the paper examines small business performance and gender using data obtained from a survey of 600 300 women 300 men scottish and english small business ownermanagers part of a three year study on the impact of gender on small business management analyses suggest that the relationship between gender and small business performance is complex but that gender still appears to be a significant determinant even after other key factors are controlled for

does incentive provision increase the quality of peer review an experimental study although peer review is crucial for innovation and experimental discoveries in science it is poorly understood in scientific terms discovering its true dynamics and exploring adjustments which improve the commitment of everyone involved could benefit scientific development for all disciplines and consequently increase innovation in the economy and the society we have reported the results of an innovative experiment developed to model peer review we demonstrate that offering material rewards to referees tends to decrease the quality and efficiency of the reviewing process our findings help to discuss the viability of different options of incentive provision supporting the idea that journal editors and responsible of research funding agencies should be extremely careful in offering material incentives on reviewing since these might undermine moral motives which guide referees behavior

the founder s self assessed competence and venture performance abstract a large body of recent research seeks to understand organizational founding and the performance of emerging businesses although much of this research has focused on the characteristics of the business founder there is only mixed support for relationships between founders characteristics and venture performance begley and boyd 1987 gartner 1988 low and macmillan 1988 sexton and bowman 1984 this study is based on research that identifies the entrepreneurial managerial and technical functional functions as three roles that founders must competently enact in order to be successful hofer and sandberg 1987 mintzberg and waters 1982 pavett and lau 1983 schein 1987 effective performance in the entrepreneurial role requires the founder to have the ability to recognize business opportunities and the drive to see firm creation through to fruition hofer and sandberg 1987 timmons et al 1987 effective execution of the managerial role requires conceptual interpersonal and political competence pavett and lau 1983 to be competent in the technical functional role founders must be able to use the tools or procedures required in their specialized field pavett and lau 1983 to measure the competencies necessary for effectiveness in the entrepreneurial managerial and technical functional roles we developed a questionnaire to allow founders to provide self evaluations of their competencies the results provide strong evidence for the reliability of measurement and the validity of the constructs the relationships revealed in this study suggest some preliminary recommendations for potential entrepreneurs career counselors and educators the number of businesses previously initiated and the years spent as an owner manager do not appear to be strongly related to the performance of the venture however the most successful entrepreneurs are strongly convinced of their ability to recognize business opportunity they believe that they have the drive to see the venture through to fruition and report that they subjugate outside interests to the demands of their businesses thus although self assessed proficiency in the entrepreneurial function does not appear to be contingent on the length of previous experience as a founder it does appear to be a necessary component in the development of high performance companies founders of the most successful firms also gave themselves high ratings on the abilities associated with effective performance in the managerial role they had high self evaluation scores on the items measuring organizational and interpersonal skills competence in the managerial role appears to be enhanced by business education and the years of general managerial experience the founders of highly successful firms also evaluated their technical skills highly they believed they were experts in their fields and could use the specialized tools and procedures to produce high quality products and services thus the results indicate that the most successful founders those whose firms show higher levels of growth and earnings rate themselves as competent in the entrepreneurial managerial and technical functional roles they see themselves as competent generalists and in a result that is most gratifying for those in higher education it appears that a business education and experience in general managerial positions lays the ground work for a successful entrepreneurial career

what policies increase prosocial behavior an experiment with referees at the journal of public economics the peer review process familiar to all academic researchers offers a classic example of the positive externalities from prosocial behavior the reviewer bears the costs from submitting a high quality referee report quickly while the gains to the authors of the paper and to society from the knowledge produced are potentially large we evaluate the impacts of economic and social incentives on peer review using an experiment with 1 500 referees at the journal of public economics the specific aim of the experiment is to understand how to improve the speed and quality of peer review an issue of particular importance to the economics profession given the slowdown of the publishing process ellison 2002 our broader objective is to evaluate commonly used methods of increasing prosocial behavior and to test the predictions of competing theories in our experiment we randomly assign referees to four groups a control group with a six week 45 day deadline to submit a referee report a group with a four week 28 day deadline a cash incentive group rewarded with 100 for meeting a four week deadline and a social incentive group in which referees were told that their turnaround times would be publicly posted the experiment yields four sets of results first shortening the deadline from six weeks to four weeks reduces median review times from 48 days to 36 days because missing the deadline has no direct

economic research evolves fields and styles we examine the evolution of economics research using a machine learning based classification of publications into fields and styles the changing field distribution of publications would not seem to favor empirical papers but economics empirical shift is a within field phenomenon even fields that traditionally emphasize theory have gotten more empirical empirical work has also come to be more cited than theoretical work the citation shift is sharpened when citations are weighted by journal importance regression analyses of citations per paper show empirical publications reaching citation parity with theoretical publications around 2000 within fields and journals however empirical work is now cited more

new firms societal contribution versus survival potential abstract new business firms are now considered a major source of new jobs economic growth technical innovation and economic flexibility they may provide a major strategic advantage for the united states in world competition a more complete precise understanding of the dynamics of new firm development their societal contributions and factors affecting their survival has considerable policy and managerial significance a study of new firm contributions and survival was completed to determine whether the same factors would account for both they do not the research began with a substantial body of descriptive information on 551 new firms initiated in minnesota between 1978 and 1984 the initial data were collected in the summer of 1984 a one year follow up was completed in 1985 to determine new firm survival the sample was representative of all major industry sectors and all regions of the state about 60 were located in the minneapolis st paul urban area attempts to predict current 1984 contributions indicated that age was not a significant factor older new firms did not contribute more than younger new firms the developmental pattern primarily the average annual growth rate was highly related to sales or jobs provided in 1984 next most significant was the industry of the new firm manufacturing distributive services and business producer service new firms provided more significant contributions the one year follow up was able to determine the survival status of 548 of the 551 firms slightly less than 10 48 had not survived major factors related to survival appeared to be age high death rates at 2 3 years and attention to financial matters

technology strategy and software new ventures performance exploring the moderating effect of the competitive environment abstract technology strategy ts is one of the most important aspects of any firm s strategic posture especially in dynamic environments such as the computer software industry not only do new ventures face the pressures that accompany all young companies e g shortages of capital but they also have to keep up with a rapid rate of technological change consequently ts the sum of a firm s choices on how to develop and exploit its technological resources can profoundly affect a venture s performance and survival this empirical study examines the relationships between ts and new venture performance nvp by focusing on ts variables and analyzing their performance outcomes the study offers insights into the factors that can influence the success of new ventures in a fast paced environment this study also examines key environmental moderators those external environmental forces which can significantly impact the strength or direction of the relationship between a firm s ts and nvp the study examines five tss that can enhance npv the first is radicality which means developing and introducing new products ahead of competitors the second is the intensity of product upgrades which refers to a venture s commitment to introducing more refinements and extensions of its products than its competition the third is the level of r d spending which indicates a venture s strong investment in internal research and development activities the fourth is the use of external technology sources e g strategic alliances and licenses to augment a firm s own r d efforts the final dimension is the use of

the slowdown in first response times of economics journals can it be beneficial the first response time henceforth frt of economics journals has increased over the last four decades from 1 2 months to 3 6 months the optimal frt however is not zero because the frt deters submission of mediocre papers to good journals and consequently saves valuable time of referees and editors the change in the actual frt is in the same direction as the change in the optimal frt which has increased because of the availability of research on the internet prior to publication and because the costs of refereeing a paper have increased

the relative impacts of economics journals 1970 1990 our data collection and database assembly efforts were assisted by john p sophocleus mark gwartney michele butler and scott ralston we received extremely valuable computer programming assistance from jon brunson and edward novak constructive comments were receivedfrom two anonymous reviewers financial supportfrom the faculty development committee at salisbury state university is gratefully acknowledged

english proficiency and labor market performance evidence from the economics profession this article investigates whether the global spread of the english language provides an inherent advantage to native english speakers this question is studied within the context of the economics profession where the impact of being a native english speaker on future publishing success is examined english speakers may have an advantage because they are writing in their native language the quality of writing is a crucial determinant of publishing success and all the top economics journals are published in english using a ranking of the world s top 2 5 of economists this article confirms that native english speakers are ranked 100 spots higher better than similar non native english speakers a variety of extensions examine and dispel many other potential explanations jel a11 j44 f66

differences in citation patterns across journal tiers the case of economics we study how citation patterns differ between journal tiers in economics concretely we analyze citations patterns of more than 6 000 economics research articles published in top five second tier and top field economics journals between 1992 and 1996 in line with previous literature we find that top five journals articles generally receive more citations and that the life cycles of those citations are longer however their influence in term of citations is overestimated in its first twenty five years since publication the median top five article accumulates 4 25 around 3 as many citations when compared to the second tier and top field median article we show that this ratio is strongly associated with the field of economics research e g this ratio is the lowest for econometric methods papers and with articles impact e g in all fields of economics research except for theory this ratio decreases sharply as one moves toward high impact articles in term of citations

submission fees and response times in academic publishing both submission fees and response times enable editors to maintain an acceptable refereeing burden by discouraging the submission of articles with low probability of acceptance when authors differ in their ability or willingness to pay submission fees and deal with delays journal quality is maximized under a combination of moderate fees and moderate delays

an analysis of publication lags in econometrics this note describes the lengthening in publication lags for econometric papers in seven journals since 1986 and briefly considers ways of shortening them

the slowdown of the economics publishing process over the last three decades there has been a dramatic slowdown of the publication process at top economics journals a substantial part is due to journals requiring more extensive revisions various explanations are considered democratization of the review process increases in the complexity of papers growth of the profession and cost and benefit arguments changes in the profession are examined using time series data connections between these changes and the slowdown are examined using paper level data there is evidence for some explanations but most of the slowdown remains unexplained changes may reflect evolving social norms

technology strategy and new venture performance a study of corporate sponsored and independent biotechnology ventures abstract new ventures companies eight years or younger play a major role in the development of an emerging high technology industry corporate sponsored new ventures those supported by an established corporation and independent ventures those founded by independent entrepreneurs frequently battle for industry leadership and financial success whereas both venture types use technology to achieve financial and market success little is known about the differences in their technology strategies technology strategy is the plan that guides a new venture s decisions on the development and use of technological capabilities this strategy covers six major areas the first is selecting the pioneering posture where a venture decides whether or not be among the industry s first companies to introduce new products technologies to the market the second is determining the number of products to be introduced to the market the third is choosing the extent of a venture s use of internal and external r d sources internal sources usually refer to in house r d activities external sources may include purchasing or licensing of technology from other companies or joining strategic alliances to acquire that technology the fourth is deciding the level of r d spending the fifth is selecting the combination portfolio of applied and basic research projects whereas basic r d advances science applied r d leads to new products and technologies the sixth and final dimension is the venture s use of patenting to protect any competitive advantages it might gain from its r d activities this article reports the results of a study that explored the differences in the technology strategies and performance of corporate and independent ventures the biotechnology industry was chosen to test the study s hypotheses using 112 ventures seven of the study s hypotheses focused on the potential variations in technology strategy between corporate and independent ventures independent ventures ivs were expected to surpass corporate ventures cvs in pioneering new products technologies using internal r d and emphasizing applied r d cvs were expected to surpass ivs in introducing new products using external r d sources spending on r d and patenting the study s remaining three hypotheses covered possible variations in new venture performance nvp and their sources the results showed that ivs focused more on pioneering pursued a more applied r d portfolio and emphasized internal r d more than cvs cvs utilized external technology sources spent more heavily on r d stressed basic r d and used patenting more intensively than ivs these results were consistent with the hypotheses however contrary to expectations there were no significant differences between cvs and ivs in the frequency of new product introductions probably because most ventures were at the invention rather than the commercialization stage the results on the nvp of cvs and ivs were counter to expectations ivs outperformed cvs probably because of the high motivation of the iv owners who reaped the rewards of growth and profitability also whereas cvs may have greater access to the resources of their sponsors political conflicts and rigid corporate controls might have reduced their ability to achieve competitive advantages the results also indicated that cvs and ivs appeared to gain competitive advantages from different technological choices pioneering a focus on applied r d and extensive use of the internal r d sources were also positively associated with the performance of ivs heavy r d spending the use of both internal and external r d sources frequent product introductions and patenting were positively associated with the performance of cvs finding that technology strategies significantly impacted nvp should encourage executives to consider pursuing a formal technology strategy likewise the finding that different dimensions of technology strategy influenced the performance of cvs and ivs in different ways has practical implications cv managers can learn from their higher performing iv rivals also because established companies frequently acquire ivs information about their technology strategies can be valuable in assimilating the acquired ventures overall the results show that technology strategy is an important factor in enhancing new venture performance

page limits on economics articles evidence from two journals abstract over the past four decades the median length of the papers published in the top five economic journals has grown by nearly 300 percent we study the effects of a page limit policy introd

out of the frying pan why small business managers introduce high risk products abstract some managers in small firms who are disappointed with their firm s current performance will introduce new products to improve the situation although untested in a small business context prospect theory suggests that managers who are less satisfied may be more likely to introduce products with riskier characteristics the current study confirmed this finding that managers who were less satisfied introduced products into less familiar markets and required more resources the study also provided tentative evidence that these characteristics may decrease the product s economic performance and the manager s subsequent satisfaction with the business suggesting that a dangerous downward spiral may occur

corporate versus independent new ventures resource strategy and performance differences abstract this study examines differences between independent ventures ivs which are established by individual entrepreneurs and corporate ventures cvs which are controlled by larger companies it focuses on differences between these ventures related to the resources strategies and performance of firms in the computer and communications equipment manufacturing industries thus the findings increase the understanding of the different challenges faced by each venture type and provide insight into how each venture type should be managed the study finds that managers of cvs and ivs emphasized different resources and strategies specifically cvs emphasized the following resources internal capital sources proprietary knowledge and marketing expertise ivs emphasized external capital sources technical expertise and development of brand identification they also differed in their strategies ivs pursued greater strategic breadth more customer service and focused more on specialty products the findings that cvs had less strategic breadth was surprising in that cvs emphasized resources such as internal capital sources which could make pursuing broad strategies more feasible for cvs it is possible that some cvs do not pursue broad strategies because they may be infringing upon someone else s turf within the corporation and thus may be discouraged in spite of finding significant strategy and resource differences the study found that ivs and cvs did not differ in performance and that resources were not directly related to performance based on the concept of equifinality it follows that both venture types can be equally successful even if they follow different roads to success success may be less a function of the different resources ivs and cvs have and more a function of what strategies the firms choose based upon their resources strategy variables did relate to performance a low cost strategy lowered performance regardless of venture type and the influence of an aggressive strategy i e wide strategic breadth on performance depended upon venture origin managers pursuing a low cost strategy may have had lower performance if they became penny wise and pound foolish missing opportunities in their efforts to lower costs this suggests that regardless of venture type managers of new ventures in these industries and perhaps in other volatile industries may need to be opportunistic this study indicates that pursuing broad strategies increased the performance of ivs and decreased the performance of cvs this finding was surprising in that cvs had greater resources which one might think would lead to successful implementation of aggressive strategies in securing enough resources to pursue aggressive strategies from their parents cvs may lose the freedom of action they need to cope with the dynamism of high technology industries this suggests that managers of cvs within the computer and communications equipment manufacturing industries should either not pursue broad strategies or if pursuing broad strategy they should maintain their flexibility in contrast ivs that pursued broad strategies achieved higher performance indicating that perhaps ivs unencumbered by the bureaucracy that characterizes cvs may be able to pursue aggressive strategies while simultaneously maintaining flexibility thus this study offers iv and cv managers several valuable insights first it argues that managers of each type of venture may need to pursue different strategies to increase venture performance and make optimal use of their unique resources furthermore it suggests that cv managers encounter difficulties in applying resources to strategies and not in accessing resources whereas political obstacles may occur cv managers may primarily encounter these difficulties when trying to implement strategies rather than when accumulating resources from the parent suggesting a pitfall that managers of cvs and their parents need to avoid although this study has indicated that both venture types can be equally successful it suggests that they may face different obstacles and follow different roads to success

entrepreneurship and the initial size of firms abstract it is clear that entrepreneurs and their firms can vary widely nevertheless most of the research to date on entrepreneurship has examined central tendencies with relatively little attention devoted to entrepreneurial diversity this study examines one of the most distinguishing characteristics of young firms initial size the focus is whether smaller start ups differ from larger ones in the backgrounds of the entrepreneurs their processes of starting or the subsequent patterns of development in this longitudinal study an initial sample of 1903 young firms was examined to determine differences in characteristics of the entrepreneurs and in their processes of starting one year later data were obtained from 742 of these firms permitting analysis of how initial firm size was related to subsequent difficulties encountered and changes made as well as to performance as expected along almost every dimension these starting larger firms had the backgrounds that would seem to be necessary for the assembly of substantial resources they tended to have more education more management experience and goals that were more managerial in nature they also were more likely to have partners women were associated more often with smaller ventures but for this sample there were no differences in the representation of minorities between the smaller and larger start ups those starting larger ventures tended to rely more upon external investors and to start ventures more closely linked to their previous jobs both groups of entrepreneurs sought information from a number of sources but those founding larger ventures utilized professional advisors more whereas those starting smaller ventures utilized informal sources in the year after the first questionnaire differences between the two groups were less marked than expected both groups of surviving firms reported low levels of serious problems with the smaller ventures somewhat surprisingly reporting serious problems less often there were not many differences in changes made except that smaller ventures were more likely to lose partners and larger ventures were more likely to add branches or locations both groups reported high rates of mean growth in sales the smaller ventures with their small initial bases showed larger percentage increases smaller ventures also showed higher percentage increases in employment and surprisingly a greater increase in the absolute number of employees somewhat more of the smaller ventures had discontinued both groups included many firms that grew substantially and others that scaled back demonstrating the fluidity and experimentation characteristic of young firms for entrepreneurs and their advisors for public policy makers and for researchers any progress in understanding entrepreneurial processes should in the long run enhance venture performance the patterns observed here indicate that firms of different initial size tend to be associated with particular entrepreneurial characteristics processes of formation and subsequent patterns of development this diversity should be recognized in the development of assistance programs and university courses as well as in the interpretation of previous research for public policy makers the growth of these firms both small and large indicates the potential of economic contributions from entrepreneur ship further the growth of the smaller start ups suggests that even those ventures that appear to have few resources and modest potential can in the aggregate contribute substantially to the economy

a good riddance spin offs and the technological performance of parent firms how do spin offs new ventures created by former employees of an incumbent firm affect the technological performance of their parents conventional wisdom holds that spin offs hurt parent firms the parent loses key staff routines are disrupted and performance declines although having some basis in fact we think the negative effects are overstated we argue that spin offs can enable parent firms to realign with their environment thereby avoiding the oncoming obsolescence arising from the combination of organizational inertia and environmental drift using data from the hard disk drive industry we find evidence that although the main effect of having a spin off on a parent firm s technological performance is positive the overall impact of a spin off depends upon the technological sophistication of the spin off and the time since the spin off occurred indeed parent firms of technologically sophisticated successful spin offs initially suffer poorer technological performance but over time they outperform firms that had no spin offs both effects are amplified to the extent that the spin off is more successful which we attribute to both increased environmental realignment and the positive signal that successful spin offs transmit to the broader labor market about the parent organization s reputation as an incubator of entrepreneurs and a desirable place to work

novice portfolio and serial founders are they different abstract there is growing interest in entrepreneurs who have been involved in more than one venture yet to date there has been relatively little theoretical development and systematic empirical examination of the topic in particular there has been little attention to the potential heterogeneity of habitual entrepreneurship this study aims to contribute to this emerging area in two ways first it outlines a conceptual typology of habitual entrepreneurs who have founded purchased or inherited businesses second the empirical part of the study focuses on owner managers providing an exploratory analysis of the characteristics and effects of independent business ownership by novice portfolio and serial founders novice founders are those that have no prior entrepreneurial experience as either a founder an inheritor or a purchaser of a business portfolio founders retain their original business and inherit establish and or purchase another business serial founders are those who sell their original business but at a later date inherit establish and or purchase another business the study derives propositions suggesting differences among the three types of founders at the individual founder level of analysis similarities as well as differences in the personal background work experiences reasons leading to the start up of businesses and personal attitudes to entrepreneurship of these three types of entrepreneurs are explored at the organizational level of analysis finance employment and performance differences among the businesses owned by the three types of entrepreneurs are presented the issues are examined using a sample of entrepreneurs who were the principal owner managers of independent businesses in great britain the sample included 389 novice founders 62 6 75 portfolio founders 12 1 and 157 serial founders 25 3 no statistically significant differences were found among the three groups of entrepreneurs with regard to the main industrial activity geographical location and the age of their businesses univariate and multivariate tests were used to examine potential differences between the groups the results of the study show significant differences between portfolio and serial founders with regard to their parental background work experience and their age when they started their first business differences were also found with respect to reasons leading to start up personal attitudes to entrepreneurship and sources of funds used during the launch period of the surveyed business these findings suggest that habitual entrepreneurs cannot be treated as a homogeneous group the analysis however failed to find any significant differences between the performance of the surveyed firms owned by habitual founders and novice founders and between the two types of habitual founders the findings of the study indicate for researchers that there is a need to carefully define the unit of analysis in any examination of entrepreneurs in particular there is a need to take note of the heterogeneity of types of entrepreneur and to consider the entrepreneur as the appropriate unit of analysis rather than simply the firm although this study focused on habitual founders of businesses the theoretical section of the study also identified other types of habitual entrepreneurs such as serial corporate entrepreneurs and serial management buy out and buy in cases these other types of habitual entrepreneurs would appear to warrant further analysis the findings of this study have a number of implications for practitioners especially venture capitalists the absence of significant performance differences between novice and habitual entrepreneurs which is consistent with the results from other studies emphasizes the need for venture capitalists screening potential investees not to rely solely on previous experience the study also has implications for policy makers especially with respect to decisions concerning the allocation of resources to assist nascent entrepreneurs novice entrepreneurs and habitual entrepreneurs the similarities in business performance among novice serial and portfolio entrepreneurs suggests that policy makers need to be careful in targeting scarce resources most notably targeting resources to encourage talented nascent entrepreneurs to become novice entrepreneurs may offer returns which are at least as good as targeting resources to more experienced entrepreneurs

the inside scoop acceptance and rejection at the journal of international economics abstract there is little work on the inner workings of journals what factors seem to affect the ability to publish in a journal could simple rules which are already used by some journals like the desk rejection of a significant minority of papers help to streamline the process at what cost how well do journals seem to do in choosing papers what can we say about the extent of type 1 and type 2 errors do editors seem to have uniform standards or are some harsher than others we use data on submissions to the journal of international economics to help answer these questions

initial human and financial capital as predictors of new venture performance abstract this research seeks to predict the performance of new ventures based on factors that can be observed at the time of start up indicators of initial human and financial capital are considered to determine how they bear upon the probability of three possible performance outcomes 1 failure 2 marginal survival or 3 high growth four categories of initial human and financial capital are examined general human capital represented here by the entrepreneur s education gender and race may reflect the extent to which the entrepreneur has had the opportunity to develop relevant skills and contacts management know how embodied in the entrepreneur or available through advisors or partners reflects management specific skills and knowledge without regard to the kind of business industry specific know how reflects specific experience in similar businesses financial capital is one of the most visible resources it can create a buffer against random shocks and allow the pursuit of more capital intensive strategies which are better protected from imitation the study utilizes a longitudinal study of 1053 new ventures representative of all industry sectors and geographical regions the research departs from most previous studies in considering different measures of performance marginal survival and growth and in considering explicitly whether the factors contributing to marginal survival differ from those contributing to high growth it was found that measures of general human capital influenced both survival and growth except for gender with women owned ventures being less likely to grow but just as likely to survive management know how variables had more limited impact having parents who had owned a business contributed to marginal survival but not to growth number of partners contributed to growth but not to survival management level prior employment in non profit organizations or not having been in the labor force and the use of professional advisors did not have significant effects industry specific know how contributed to both survival and growth amount of initial financial capital also contributed to both the usefulness of the model is enhanced by the fact that the resource variables considered are relatively easy to assess and all can be considered at the time of start up although some of the human capital variables cannot easily be changed the benefits or risks associated with each can be assessed in some cases potential problems can be identified so that plans can be modified to improve prospects overall it appears that using a model based upon the initial human and financial capital of the venture it is possible to predict the performance of new ventures with some degree of confidence

on publication refereeing and working hard we present a model for academia with heterogeneous author types and endogenous effort to evaluate recent changes in the publication process in economics we analyze the implications of these developments on research output lowering the precision of refereeing signals lowers the effort choices of intermediate ability authors but invites more submissions from less able authors increasing the number of journals stimulates less able authors to submit their papers the editor can improve the journal s quality pool of submitted manuscripts by improving the precision of refereeing but not by lowering acceptance standards the submission strategy of an author is informative of his ability

bayesian fuzzy regression discontinuity analysis and returns to compulsory schooling summary this paper is concerned with the use of a bayesian approach to fuzzy regression discontinuity rd designs for understanding the returns to education the discussion is motivated by the change in government policy in the uk in april of 1947 when the minimum school leaving age was raised from 14 to 15 a change that had a discontinuous impact on the probability of leaving school at age 14 for cohorts who turned 14 around the time of the policy change we develop a bayesian fuzzy rd framework that allows us to take advantage of this discontinuity to calculate the effect of an additional year of education on subsequent log earnings for the latent class of subjects that complied with the policy change we illustrate this approach with a new dataset composed from the uk general household surveys copyright 2015 john wiley sons ltd

estimating average and local average treatment effects of education when compulsory schooling laws really matter the change to the minimum school leaving age in the united kingdom from 14 to 15 had a powerful and immediate effect that redirected almost half the population of 14 year olds in the mid twentieth century to stay in school for one more year the magnitude of this impact provides a rare opportunity to a estimate local average treatment effects late of high school that come close to population average treatment effects ate and b estimate returns to education using a regression discontinuity design instead of previous estimates that rely on difference in differences methodology or relatively weak instruments comparing late estimates for the united states and canada where very few students were affected by compulsory school laws to the united kingdom estimates provides a test as to whether instrumental variables iv returns to schooling often exceed ordinary least squares ols because gains are high only for small and peculiar groups among the more general population i find instead that the benefits from compulsory schooling are very large whether these laws have an impact on a majority or minority of those exposed

firm dynamics and industrialization in the chinese economy in transition implications for small business policy abstract this article first presents a review of the development of different types of domestic enterprises state owned enterprise soes collectiveowned enterprises coes and other enterprises oes which include mainly private enterprises compared with other transition economies coes are actually an important source of china s rapid economic growth they are vaguely defined cooperative without a well defined ownership structure there is no equivalent organizational structure similar to coes in western economies the purpose of this article is to study the empirical relationship between the size of domestic enterprises including state owned enterprises collective owned enterprises and other enterprises and their firm dynamics growth by investigating whether they grow according to gibrat s law the majority of coes and oes were formed after the economic reform the rapid growth of these non state enterprises especially coes is actually the driving force behind the rapid development of the industrial sector our empirical results suggest that gibrat s law does not hold for all types of enterprises the rejection is especially strong for coes moreover small enterprises are growing faster than their larger counterparts in terms of employment and output this conclusion leads to at least three implications 1 there has been little research into the dynamics of soes and coes in an economy in transition our results not only help stimulate further research in this area but also provide information for designing policies to speed up the economic reforms 2 until now the chinese government has not had a comprehensive small business policy given our empirical results there is an implication for government policy prescription to achieve china s development targets of rapid industrialization and lower unemployment or underemployment the chinese economy can reap more dynamic benefits by breaking up a giant and inefficient enterprise especially inefficient soe into a number of smaller enterprises in addition more small enterprises also improve competition in the marketplace and force other inefficient soes to improve their performance further research should be undertaken to examine the viability of this policy 3 because coes are the majority of small manufacturing enterprises the rapid growth of coes after their formation that are simply the opposite of the type of private organizations the center of the central and east european reforms is rather surprising to academics although some hypotheses like cooperative culture and moral framework for rights are put forward to explain their superior performance the validity of such hypotheses has not been empirically tested yet this is a fruitful area for further research

the effects of publication lags on life cycle research productivity in economics we investigate how increases in publication delays have affected the life cycle of publications of recent ph d graduates in economics we construct a panel dataset of 14 271 individuals who were awarded ph d s between 1986 and 2000 in u s and canadian economics departments for this population of scholars we amass complete records of publications in peer reviewed journals listed in the jel a total of 368 672 observations we find evidence of significantly diminished productivity in recent relative to earlier cohorts when productivity of an individual is measured by the number of aer equivalent publications diminished productivity is less evident when the number of aer equivalent pages is used instead our findings are consistent with earlier empirical findings of increasing editorial delays decreasing acceptance rates at journals and a trend toward longer manuscripts this decline in productivity is evident in both graduates of top 30 and non top 30 ranked economics departments and may have important implications for what should constitute a tenurable record we also find that the research rankings of top economics departments are a surprisingly poor predictor of the subsequent research rankings of their ph d s graduates jel a11 j24 j29 j44

forced to be rich returns to compulsory schooling in britain do students benefit from compulsory schooling in an important article oreopoulos 2006 studied the 1947 british compulsory schooling law change and found large returns to schooling of about 15 using the general household survey ghs re analysing this dataset we find much smaller returns of about 3 on average with no evidence of any positive return for women and a return for men of 4 7 additionally we utilise the new earnings survey panel data set nespd that has earnings information superior to that in the ghs and find similar estimates zero returns for women and returns of 3 to 4 for men