reconciling the old and new census bureau education questions recommendations for researchers beginning with the 1990 census and the january 1992 current population survey cps the bureau of the census changed the emphasis of its educational attainment question from years of education to degree receipt using a matched sample from the 1991 and 1992 march cps this article addresses how to reconcile the old and new questions the effects of those methods on the estimated return s to education are then examined both the estimated linear return and the estimated college high school wage differential are slightly larger using information from the new question

financial contracting theory meets the real world an empirical analysis of venture capital contracts we compare the characteristics of real world financial contracts to their counterparts in financial contracting theory we do so by studying the actual contracts between venture capitalists vcs and entrepreneurs the distinguishing characteristic of vc financings is that they allow vcs to separately allocate cash flow rights board rights voting rights liquidation rights and other control rights we describe and measure these rights we then interpret our results in relation to existing financial contracting theories we also describe the interrelation and the evolution across financing rounds of the different rights query 1 query 2

section 337 and the protection of intellectual property in the united states the complainants and the impact under section 337 of the tariff act of 1930 a firm can challenge imports that infringe its u s intellectual property rights such as patents copyrights and trademarks based on publicly available information this paper examines the characteristics of firms that file complaints under section 337 and also evaluates how firms are affected by the outcomes we find a complaining firm compared with peer firms in the same industry is typically larger produces a more diverse range of products has invested more in intangibles and is no less profitable a finding of no violation significantly depresses the filing firm s profits compared to peers section 337 appears to protect innovators but its effectiveness in promoting more innovation cannot be demonstrated so clearly copyright 1996 by mit press

the employment dynamics of different population groups over the business cycle abstractwe examine differences in employment dynamics across population groups using bayesian vector autoregressions we document that groups who are particularly strongly affected by business cycle fluctuations males young people non whites the less educated and workers in blue collar occupations also tend to be affected early in the build up of a boom or bust we further identify the drivers of the different cyclicalities across population groups supply shocks seem to be most important for the heterogeneous employment fluctuations and particularly for the early effects of recessions and booms on the most affected groups dynamics in sectoral activity and in hiring rates can help to understand our findings

geography industrial organization and agglomeration this paper makes two contributions to the empirical literature on agglomeration economies first the paper uses a unique and rich database in conjunction with mapping software to measure the geographic extent of agglomerative externalities previous papers have been forced to assume that agglomeration economies are club goods that operate at a metropolitan scale second the paper tests for the existence of organizational agglomeration economies of the kind studied qualitatively by saxenian 1994 this is a potentially important source of increasing returns that previous empirical work has not considered results indicate that localization economies attenuate rapidly and that industrial organization affects the benefits of agglomeration

poverty volatility and macroeconomic quiescence a consistent finding in the poverty literature is the diminution of the impact of the macroeconomy on official poverty rates in the united states since the early 1980s up until then measures of aggregate economic activity real gdp growth or the unemployment rate had a more substantial influence on the poverty rate most recently this fact has been documented by hilary w hoynes marianne e page and ann huff stevens 2006 hps hereafter kevin lang 2007 notes that much has changed since the early 1980s with respect to antipoverty policy and labor market factors that affect poverty status important changes include the transition from cash to in kind transfers the stagnation in real median earnings rising earnings inequality and the increase in female headed households nevertheless after considering several factors that influence poverty including wage growth inequality and female employment hps conclude their analysis of poverty trends with the view that explanation of the change in the response of poverty to macroeconomic indicators remains an open issue this paper examines whether traction may be gained on this issue by enhancing our understanding of the volatility of poverty rates specifically we examine the volatility of poverty rates over time and across demographic groups to the extent that poverty rate variability is associated with the risk of poverty incidence it is shown that certain eras have exposed members of particular demographic groups to more poverty risk than others then we contrast the volatility of poverty rates to that of aggregate economic activity margaret m mcconnell and gabriel perez quiros 2000 among others present evidence that the volatility of real gdp has been significantly poverty volatility and macroeconomic quiescence

an introduction to the law and economics of intellectual property although economists have written on topics of intellectual property for a long time the impact of economics on public policy in this area has been slight especially as compared to the influence of professional writings in areas such as antitrust and taxation we believe that too few of the profession s resources have been devoted to these issues and that of those resources that have been employed too few have been devoted to empirical analyses we hope that this introductory essay and the three papers that follow will stimulate interest in this subject this introductory essay first describes some of the basic economic tradeoffs involved in intellectual property law and then describes the framework of the law in the six areas described above patent copyright semiconductor protection trademark trade secret and misappropriation it is intended both to provide thumbnail descriptions of the various intellectual property regimes to economists working in this area and to indicate where additional economic research might be useful

channel coordination under price protection midlife returns and end of life returns in dynamic markets this paper examines three channel policies that are used in declining price environments price protection p is a mechanism under which the manufacturer pays the retailer a credit applying to the retailer s unsold inventory when thewholesale price drops during the life cycle midlife returns m allow the retailer to return units partway through the life cycle at some rebate and end of life returns e allow the retailer to return unsold units at the end of the life cycle under decliningretail prices if the wholesale prices and the return rebates are set properly then em i e midlife and end of life returns achieves channel coordination however such a policy may not be implementable because it may require the manufacturer to be worse off as a result of coordination if p is used in addition to em and the terms are set properly then pem guarantees both coordination and a win win outcome if theretail price is constant over time then em is sufficient to guarantee both coordination and a win win outcome

the effect of trade secret legal protection on venture capital investments evidence from the inevitable disclosure doctrine abstract this study investigates how the inevitable disclosure doctrine a form of trade secret legal protection affects venture capital vc investment using a data set of vc deals realized in the united states from 1980 to 2012 we find that a rule in favor of inevitable disclosure increases the amount of vc investment we address mechanisms that can explain these findings by assessing how the inevitable disclosure doctrine a displays a different impact on vc investments according to the characteristics of the state and the industry where the start ups operate and b affects the performance of vc backed firms we also discuss managerial and policy implications of our findings

credit mismatch and breakdown abstract this paper studies the phenomenon of mismatch in a decentralized credit market where borrowers and lenders must engage in costly search to establish credit relationships our dynamic general equilibrium framework integrates incentive based informational frictions with a matching process highlighted by i borrowers endogenous market entry and exit decision entry frictions and ii time and resource costs necessary to locate credit opportunities search frictions a key feature of the incentive compatible loan contract negotiated between borrowers and lenders is the interaction of informational frictions in the form of moral hazard with entry and search frictions we find that the removal of entry barriers can eliminate incentive based equilibrium credit rationing more generally entry and incentive frictions are important in understanding the extent of credit rationing and credit mismatch while search and incentive frictions are important for understanding credit market breakdown

the effects of increased copyright protection an analytic approach previous authors who have considered partially nonexcludable goods have claimed that an increase in copyright protection will have the following two effects on social welfare first it will decrease the social welfare loss due to underproduction second it will increase the social welfare loss due to underutilization in this paper we investigate these claims in a formal setting by analyzing a model in which consumers vary only in terms of their costs of obtaining a reproduction our analysis provides partial support to the first claim of these previous authors while giving little or no support to the second claim

venture capital availability and labor market performance around the world this article studies the effects of venture capital on the performance of the labour market using data from a much larger sample of countries than previous papers it finds more readily available venture capital to favourably affect both the unemployment and the employment rate the magnitude of the estimated effects is substantial we control for both endogeneity of venture capital availability and most major determinants of labour market performance the results are robust to variations in specification

disclosure venture capital and entrepreneurial spawning venture capital vc funds have been facing increasing regulatory scrutiny since the 2007 financial crisis particularly with respect to calls for increased disclosure requirements in this paper we examine the effect of more stringent securities regulation on the supply and performance of vc as well as on new business creation i e entrepreneurial spawning using country level and investment level data from 34 countries over the years 2000 2008 we find that more stringent securities regulation is positively associated with the supply and performance of vc around the world more stringent securities regulation is also positively associated with entrepreneurial spawning induced by vc among different forms of securities regulation disclosure stands out as having the most economically meaningful impact which casts doubt on the oft repeated objections to disclosure in vc that it would stifle the vc industry because secrets would have to be revealed to competitors and the public these findings are robust to numerous robustness checks for endogeneity the policy implications are clear however regardless of endogeneity concerns vc and entrepreneurship markets are enabled not curtailed in countries with better disclosure standards when one compares the existing differences in disclosure around the world and changes thereto over the 2000 2008 period

fighting software piracy which governance tools matter in africa this article integrates previously missing components of government quality into the governance piracy nexus in exploring governance mechanisms by which global obligations for the treatment of iprs are effectively transmitted from international to the national level in the battle against piracy it assesses the best governance tools in the fight against piracy and upholding of intellectual property rights iprs the instrumentality of ipr laws treaties in tackling piracy through good governance mechanisms is also examined findings demonstrate that 1 while all governance tools under consideration significantly decrease the incidence of piracy corruption control is the most effective weapon 2 but for voice and accountability political stability and democracy ipr laws treaties are instrumental in tackling piracy through government quality dynamics of rule of law regulation quality government effectiveness corruption control and press freedom hence the need for a policy approach most conducive to expanding development is to implement an integrated system of both iprs and corollary good governance policies moreover our findings support the relevance of good governance measures in developing countries wishing to complement their emerging ipr regimes

the polarization of the u s labor market this paper analyzes a marked change in the evolution of the u s wage structure over the past fifteen years divergent trends in upper tail 90 50 and lower tail 50 10 wage inequality we document that wage inequality in the top half of distribution has displayed an unchecked and rather smooth secular rise for the last 25 years since 1980 wage inequality in the bottom half of the distribution also grew rapidly from 1979 to 1987 but it has ceased growing and for some measures actually narrowed since the late 1980s furthermore we find that occupational employment growth shifted from monotonically increasing in wages education in the 1980s to a pattern of more rapid growth in jobs at the top and bottom relative to the middles of the wage education distribution in the 1990s we characterize these patterns as the u201cpolarization u201d of the u s labor market with employment polarizing into high wage and low wage jobs at the expense of middle wage work we show how a model of computerization in which computers most strongly complement the non routine abstract cognitive tasks of high wage jobs directly substitute for the routine tasks found in many traditional middle wage jobs and may have little direct impact on non routine manual tasks in relatively low wage jobs can help explain the observed polarization of the u s labor market this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

super partes assessing the effect of judicial independence on entry incumbents can enjoy a cost advantage vis a vis new entrants and so deter new firm entry by establishing and leveraging connections with the judicial system connected firms may in fact avoid fully complying with the costly norms implied by a law a regulation or a contract at the same time they can also credibly threaten to sue new entrants therefore a change in the institutional environment that diminishes the ability of incumbent firms to establish judicial connections i e an increase in judicial independence can promote entrepreneurship exploiting reforms that change the way in which u s state judges are selected we confirm that this is the case and we show that this effect is more salient in states and industries where the likelihood of entering into a business dispute is higher the paper also sheds some light on the mechanisms behind this effect data and the online appendix are available at https doi org 10 1287 mnsc 2017 2794 this paper was accepted by toby stuart entrepreneurship

new technology based firms in europe market penetration public venture capital and timing of investment we investigate the effect of public puvc and private prvc venture capital funds on the sales growth of 6513 european new technology based firms ntbfs during the period from 1992 to 2009 our results show that puvc backed ntbfs underperform with respect to prvc backed ones and do not grow more than non venture capital backed companies the impact of puvc is still not statistically significant even though it is positive when puvc funds target young ntbfs the only notable exception suggesting a positive and statistically significant impact for puvcs is when puvc funds cofinance with prvc funds and both target young firms

venture capital in europe and the financing of innovative companies european venture captial venture capital is considered to be the most appropriate form of financing for innovative firms in high tech sectors venture capital has greatly developed over the last three decades in the united states but much less so in europe where policy makers are striving to help channel more funds into this form of financial intermediation in this paper we provide the first assessment of venture capital in europe we document its development in the 1990s and compare it with that of american venture capital we find the wedge between them to be large and growing we then look at the involvement of venture capital with some of europe s most innovative and successful companies those listed on europe s new stock markets venture capital is effective in helping these firms overcome credit constraints and thus to be born in the first place using a unique hand collected data set from the listing prospectuses and annual reports of these companies we find european venture capital to have a limited effect on their ability to raise equity capital grow and create jobs we conclude that public support of the european venture capital industry should look at both its growth and at its maturation laura bottazzi and marco da rin

micro entrepreneurship and subjective well being evidence from rural bangladesh abstract microcredit has long been hailed as a powerful tool to promote livelihoods and reduce poverty through entrepreneurship however its impacts on people s subjective well being remain underexplored we present a unified theoretical framework for analyzing the effect of microcredit enabled entrepreneurship on overall life satisfaction a key manifestation of subjective well being empirically we apply an instrumental variable approach to a unique census like household survey conducted in three villages of bangladesh in 2013 in spite of having no direct effects we find that microcredit borrowing has an indirect negative effect on overall life satisfaction through increased worry on a positive note we find that female micro borrowers experience an increase in satisfaction with financial security and achievement in life we also provide evidence that micro borrowers with higher levels of assets experience an increase in satisfaction with financial security

capitalists and workers knowledge and the strategic role of investment within the firm does the ownership of capital confer a strategic advantage within the firm the formation of a firm frequently represents an attempt by an individual to secure a return on knowledge and we demonstrate that in this context there can be an incentive to precommit capital before contracting with other members of the firm that is to be the capitalist results are also obtained on the investment level and wage rate the key ingredient of the model is emergence of a product market entry threat from within the firm this contrasts with the anonymous external potential entrant prevalent in the literature

the right to return this article studies the allocation of responsibility for unsold inventory provision for which is made in practically every distribution contract the two extreme cases are the consignment contract which allocates all the burden to the manufacturer and the no return contract in which retailers purchase the merchandise outright and assume responsibility for unsold inventory contract choices are shown to vary across countries industries products and types of transactions the article identifies six main factors affecting this choice optimal inventory policy in a stochastic retail demand environment relative advantage in disposing of the unsold inventory optimal risk allocation incentives to invest in promotions and provide services to increase consumer demand information asymmetry and costs associated with the consignment contract per se several testable implications are presented and the choice of contracts in the publishing industry is shown to be consistent with the predictions of the model

demand signalling and screening in channels of distribution this paper examines two ways channel members at the manufacturing and retail ends deal with asymmetric information in the context of new product introduction a manufacturer who has private information that demand for a new product will be high can differentiate itself from a manufacturer less confident of demand by undertaking high levels of pre launch advertising and offering a high wholesale price a retailer for its part can screen potentially high demand from potentially low demand products by stipulating a take it or leave it slotting allowance the assumption being that the offer will be accepted only by manufacturers confident of sufficient demand to recover the high initial cost of slotting allowances it is shown that manufacturers prefer to signal demand through advance advertising and wholesale price retailers to screen demand through slotting allowances it is shown that unless advance advertising is sufficiently effective slotting allowances yield higher total channel profits and higher social welfare

returns policy new model introduction and consumer welfare abstract this paper investigates how economic outcomes differ for new model introduction between two extreme contracts outright sales contract and returns policy contract with full credit under the outright sales contract we show that the retailer s incentive to introduce a new model can lead to a reduction of consumer welfare when the retailer is moderately risk averse the primary conclusion from this study is that the returns policy contract resolves this conflict between firms and consumers and that the supply chain introduces the new model only when consumer surplus from the new model is higher than that from the old model

community and capital in entrepreneurship and economic growth we argue that social integration in the sense of within community interconnectedness and venture capital have a complementary relationship in fostering innovation entrepreneurship and economic gr

the consequences of entrepreneurial finance evidence from angel financings this article documents the fact that ventures funded by two successful angel groups experience superior outcomes to rejected ventures they have improved survival exits employment patenting web traffic and financing we use strong discontinuities in angel funding behavior over small changes in their collective interest levels to implement a regression discontinuity approach we confirm the positive effects for venture operations with qualitative support for a higher likelihood of successful exits on the other hand there is no difference in access to additional financing around the discontinuity this might suggest that financing is not a central input of angel groups

does monetary policy affect relative educational unemployment rates this paper examines the empirical relationship between relative educational unemployment rates and monetary policy such an examination is warranted because policymakers attempts to understand the distributional effects of monetary policy may be confounded by vintages of the theoretical literature that offer contrasting views of how skill based relative unemployment with unemployment of the less skilled in the numerator might behave over the business cycle a traditional view emphasizes characteristics of labor markets that could induce countercyclical movements in skill based relative unemployment for example arthur okun 1973 argues that an important benefit of high levels of aggregate economic activity is that opportunities for employment in the high quality jobs sector open up to the relatively unskilled a mechanism for the relative improvement of the employment prospects of the unskilled is changes in hiring standards of high quality job providers that occur over the cycle changes that occur during expansion and boom periods mentioned by okun include accepting younger and less experienced workers or workers without diplomas and more intensive screening of applicants a forceful statement of this highpressure economy view is contained in rebecca blank 2000 a more recent view of the impact of technological adoption could have quite different implications for movements in skill based relative unemployment over the cycle for example dale mortensen and christopher pissarides 1999 show that in their equilibrium search and matching framework the relationship between skill and unemployment is convex in the presence of labor market policies such as unemployment compensation in this environment skill biased technology shocks increase overall unemployment rates with a disproportionate share of the unemployment falling on the unskilled in his popular account of the matter krueger 2002 ties cyclical investment in new technologies to the conduct of monetary policy thereby linking relative educational unemployment to monetary policy my answer to the title question emerges from quantitative results designed to assess the dynamic effect on relative educational unemployment of a monetary policy surprise controlling for supply shocks and the introduction of new technical ideas these findings appear to resolve some of the tension between alternative views on relative unemployment dynamics in favor of the high pressure economy hypothesis discussants seth b carpenter federal reserve board jonah b gelbach university of maryland bridget terry long harvard university

venture capital and the macroeconomy i develop a model of venture capital vc intermediation that quantitatively explains central empirical facts about vc activity and can evaluate its macroeconomic relevance the impact of vc backed innovations is significantly larger than suggested by observed aggregate venture exit valuations even after accounting for large exposures to systematic and uninsurable idiosyncratic risks the risk properties of venture capital play a quantitatively important role in both explaining empirical regularities and shaping the value of ventures contributions to economic growth the model is analytically tractable and yields exact solutions despite the presence of matching frictions imperfect risk sharing and endogenous growth received january 16 2018 editorial decision november 7 2018 by editor stijn van nieuwerburgh

financial development growth and the distribution of income a paradigm is presented in which both the extent of financial intermediation and the rate of economic growth are endogenously determined financial intermediation promotes growth because it allows a higher rate of return to be earned on capital and growth in turn provides the means to implement costly financial structures thus financial intermediation and economic growth are inextricably linked in accord with the goldsmith mckinnon shaw view on economic development the model also generates a development cycle reminiscent of the kuznet hypothesis in particular in the transition from a primitive slow growing economy to a developed fast growing one a nation passes through a stage in which the distribution of wealth across the rich and poor widens

software copyright infringement among college students in recent years the issue of infringement in the software industry has gained international attention as the demand for software continues to grow the growing presence of unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted products inhibits full potential growth and discourages creative activity this study analyses the extent of software copyright infringement among college students and attitudes of these students with regard to risk of apprehension and conviction this study finds a significantly higher likelihood of infringement for computer majors and male students and a decrease in the likelihood of infringement for older students this study also uncovers differences in attitudes toward risk of apprehension and conviction between majors in scientific fields and those in business and economics whereas the first group of majors appears to exhibit risky behaviour the latter tends to be more risk averse

why have aggregate skilled hours become so cyclical since the mid 1980 s this paper documents and discusses a dramatic change in the cyclical behavior of aggregate hours worked by individuals with a college degree skilled workers since the mid 1980 s using the cps outgoing rotation data set for the period 1979 1 2003 4 we find that the volatility of aggregate skilled hours relative to the volatility of gdp has nearly tripled since 1984 in contrast the cyclical properties of unskilled hours have remained essentially unchanged we evaluate the extent to which a simple supply demand model for skilled and unskilled labor with capital skill complementarity in production can help explain this stylized fact within this framework we identify three effects which would lead to an increase in the relative volatility of skilled hours i a reduction in the degree of capital skill complementarity ii a reduction in the absolute volatility of gdp and unskilled hours and iii an increase in the level of capital equipment relative to skilled labor we provide empirical evidence in support of each of these effects our conclusion is that these three mechanisms can jointly explain about sixty percent of the observed increase in the relative volatility of skilled labor the reduction in the degree of capital skill complementarity contributes the most to this result

the welfare implications of unauthorized reproduction of intellectual property in the presence of demand network externalities this paper finds that unauthorized reproduction of intellectual property in the presence of demand network externalities can not only induce greater firm profits relative to the case where there is no copying it can lead to a pareto improvement in social welfare ceteris paribus when network externalities are present firms have a greater incentive to expand output because marginal revenue is higher and or they may wish to create preemptive installed bases this paper suggests that unauthorized copying can be a relatively efficient means of achieving this by allowing the firm in effect to price discriminate among different classes of consumers copyright 1994 by blackwell publishing ltd

venture capital and new business creation abstract using a comprehensive database of firms from 21 european countries over the period 1998 2008 we find that venture capital investment has a positive effect on the rate of new business creation this is especially true in countries with higher entry costs higher protection of intellectual property rights and lower taxes on capital gains our results suggest that controlling for country and industry characteristics venture capital is beneficial to bringing new ideas to the marketplace in the shape of new companies

on the structure of us unemployment disaggregated by race ethnicity and gender abstract we present empirical evidence regarding the structure of unemployment in the us disaggregated by race ethnicity and gender popp s 2008 unit root test reveals that the dynamics of unemployment for all groups is characterized by the hysteresis hypothesis except for hispanic males

copying and indirect appropriability photocopying of journals creators and owners of intellectual properties are alarmed by the growth of technologies that ease the tasks of copying these properties this paper however shows that the unauthorized copying of intellectual properties need not be harmful and actually may be beneficial the empirical impact of photocopying on publishers of journals is examined in an attempt to discover if publishers can indirectly appropriate revenues from users who are not original purchasers the evidence indicates that publishers can indirectly appropriate revenues from users who do not directly purchase journals and that photocopying has not harmed journal publishers 18 references 1 table

the impact of the judiciary on entrepreneurship evaluation of pakistan s access to justice programme abstract in 2002 the pakistani government implemented a judicial reform that cost 350 million or 0 1 of pakistan s 2002 gdp this reform did not involve increased incentives for judges to improve efficiency but merely provided them with more training nonetheless the reform had dramatic effects on judicial efficiency and consequently on entrepreneurship judges disposed of a quarter more cases and entry rate of new firms increased by half due to the reform using data from the world bank group entrepreneurship database our estimates suggest that this translates into an increase of pakistan s gdp by 0 5

man cessions fiscal policy and the gender composition of employment recessions are man cessions as men are disproportionately exposed to cyclical employment fluctuations we provide evidence that fiscal expansions stimulate predominantly female employment implying a further destabilization of the gender composition of employment in recessions our findings can be understood as a consequence of differences in the industry occupation mix of employment by gender

the implications of pooled returns policies abstract when selling products with highly uncertain demands and short life cycles it is common for a manufacturer to offer some form of returns policy to entice the distributors to increase their order quantities in this paper we consider a multi item returns policy called pooled or joint returns policy under which the distributor can return any combination of the products up to r percent of the total purchases across all products we analyze the distributor s optimal profit and order quantity under the pooled returns policy and compare these operating characteristics to the case when a single item non pooled returns policy is instituted under the non pooled returns policy the distributor can only return on individual items using item specific return limits we show an intuitive result that the distributor will always achieve a higher profit under the pooled policy however the manufacturer could actually obtain a lower profit under the pooled policy due to a counter intuitive result the distributor may order less under the pooled policy even though the pooled policy offers more flexibility this counter intuitive result motivates us to determine the conditions under which the distributor would order less under the pooled policy finally we develop a heuristic for determining the distributor s optimal order quantities associated with the n product case under the pooled policy

how broad should the scope of patent protection be i explore the trade off between a patent s length that is its lifetime and its width that is its scope of coverage a wider patent generally reduces the distortion of consumers choices between the patented brand of the product and unpatented lower priced varieties sold by competitors but also permits higher prices which increase relative to profits the deadweight losses from consumers switching consumption out of the product class i show under what conditions infinitely lived but very narrowly focused patents are the socially efficient way to reward innovation and under what conditions very short lived but very broad patents are optimal

note the role of returns policies in pricing and inventory decisions for catalogue goods manufacturers often use returns policies to encourage retailers to stock and price items more aggressively we focus on the effect that such policies have on both a retailer s and a manufacturer s profits when the retailer must commit prior to the selling season to both a stocking quantity and a price at which to sell an item such a commitment is often necessary for retailers who sell primarily through catalogues

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

entrepreneurs and new ideas we study how early stage new ideas are turned into successful businesses even promising ideas can be unprofitable if they fail on one dimension such as technical feasibility correspondence to market demand legality or patentability to screen good ideas the entrepreneur needs to hire experts who evaluate the idea along their dimensions of expertise sharing the idea however creates the risk that the expert would steal it yet the idea thief cannot contact any other expert lest he should in turn steal the idea thus stealing leads to incomplete screening and is unattractive if the information of the other expert is critical and highly complementary in such cases the entrepreneur can form a partnership with the experts thus granting them the advantage of accessing each other s information yet very valuable ideas cannot be shared because it is too tempting to steal them

educational attainment and the cyclical sensitivity of employment this article examines whether there are educational premiums on the quantity side of the labor market we document four findings 1 trend employment patterns shifted for most educational levels post 1977 2 the lower the level of educational attainment the more volatile the employment ratio 3 the volatility of employment for female high school dropouts increased over time even as the economy became less volatile and 4 since 1984 the responses of skilled and unskilled employment to the business cycle have become more alike this latter finding is consistent with a reduced degree of capital skill complementarity during this period

the quantity flexibility contract and supplier customer incentives consider a supply chain consisting of two independent agents a supplier e g a manufacturer and its customer e g a retailer the latter in turn serving an uncertain market demand to reconcile manufacturing procurement time lags with a need for timely response to the market such supply chains often must commit resources to production quantities based on forecasted rather than realized demand the customer typically provides a planning forecast of its intended purchase which does not entail commitment benefiting from overproduction while not bearing the immediate costs the customer has incentive to initially overforecast before eventually purchasing a lesser quantity the supplier must in turn anticipate such behavior in its production quantity decision this individually rational behavior results in an inefficient supply chain this paper models the incentives of the two parties identifying causes of inefficiency and suggesting remedies particular attention is given to the quantity flexibility qf contract which couples the customer s commitment to purchase no less than a certain percentage below the forecast with the supplier s guarantee to deliver up to a certain percentage above under certain conditions this method can allocate the costs of market demand uncertainty so as to lead the individually motivated supplier and customer to the systemwide optimal outcome we characterize the implications of qf contracts for the behavior and performance of both parties and the supply chain as a whole

is it worth it the rates of return from informal venture capital investments despite growing interest in venture capital there is a paucity of information on the rate of return to these investments and the limited research that is available refers almost entirely to portfolio returns for venture capital funds the investment returns to business angels have been virtually ignored this paper provides the first attempt to analyse the returns to informal venture capital investment using data on 128 exited investments from a survey of 127 business angel investors in the uk the paper finds that the distribution of returns is highly skewed with 34 of exits at a total loss 13 at a partial loss or break even but with 23 showing an irr of 50 or above trade sales are the main way in which business angels harvest their investments the median time to exit for successful investments was 4 years large investments large deal sizes involving multiple coinvestors and management buyouts mbos were most likely to be high performing investments