angel investors around the world we document that the choice between disintermediated individual angel investments and intermediated private equity and venture capital investments depends on legal economic and cultural differences we find evidence of this using pitchbook s comprehensive data on more than 5000 angel and 80 000 private equity and venture capital investments in 96 countries from 1977 to 2012 the data further indicate that investee firms funded by angels are less likely to successfully exit through either an ipo or an acquisition these findings are robust to propensity score matching methods as well as to clustering standard errors and excluding u s observations among other approaches

modern money theory and the facts of experience this paper discusses modern money theory mmt with a particular focus on the role of the state in its monetary system and the nature of money it addresses the main differences between the orthodox heterodox and mmt approaches to monetary theory while reconciling endogenous money theory with the state money approach by emphasising the symmetry between how banks create money as they finance private spending and how the government creates money when it finances its own spending we clarify some of the misconceptions surrounding mmt while showing that it is more consistent with the facts of experience furthermore we argue that mmt s insistence that government spending or lending must precede bond sales is consistent with the keynesian emphasis on effective demand as the driving force behind income and saving we delve into mmt s implications for monetary and fiscal policy with a particular focus on the eurozone we conclude our paper by discussing two proposals of monetary cranks narrow banking and government issue of debt free money this allows us to re emphasise mmt s views on the nature of money

attitudes and behaviors of informal investors toward early stage investments technology based ventures and coinvestors abstract seed capital financing for new firms is important to the commercialization of business innovations yet few entrepreneurs have the personal resources necessary to finance very early stage ventures and they often find themselves relying on external sources of seed capital their personal financial capabilities can easily become exhausted and the venture capital industry represents only a partial source of needed capital for start up and infant firms in recent years researchers have discovered the individual of financial means who invests a portion of his assets in early stage risk ventures this individual is variously termed an informal investor or an angel following an initial study by seymour and wetzel in 1981 researchers have expanded the knowledge about the backgrounds investment interests and behavioral patterns of informal investors the fact that informal investors generally invest within 50 miles of their homes or offices makes their participation in the entrepreneurial process particularly important for local economies our understanding of the general role of informal investors in risk venture financing has been greatly enhanced by prior studies however additional work is needed to identify characteristics of persons committed to start up firms or to technology based ventures two especially important types of business activity in the regional competition for economic development fifty five informal investors participated in a mail questionnaire modeled after prior studies sponsored by the small business administration respondents differentiated themselves on a scale of very early stage start up versus later stage risk venture investments and on a scale of technology oriented versus nontechnology oriented investments informal investors in this sample also differed on the average number of coinvestors including institutions per investment implications arise from the study for individuals interested in regional economic development and for entrepreneurs seeking seed capital first persons more committed to start up investing are more likely to have been or to be currently entrepreneurs themselves also these individuals may not be the most visible community members in terms of past entrepreneurial success and acquired wealth in fact persons committed to start up investing tend to have a lower annual income and lower net worth than persons investing in later stage risk ventures individuals playing this important financing role are particularly hard to identify a valuable key to their identification may lie in the fact that they tend to have worked or currently work in ventures similar to those in which they invest individuals committed to investments in technology oriented risk ventures give very little information about their personal characteristics however they do indicate a considerable amount about their investment patterns these investors play a higher risk higher return investment game than do persons less committed to technology based firms technology oriented investors also report a number of actions that appear to help them manage the risks inherent in their investment behaviors contrary to conventional wisdom about informal investors in general technology oriented investors use friends as referral sources less frequently people more interested in technology based ventures in the future look more to business service professionals investment business brokers and accounting law persons as referral sources finally a person s pattern of coinvesting indicates that individual s orientation toward risk a greater number of individual coinvestors in a typical deal is associated with a willingness to invest further from home for example and with a lower return expectation also persons investing with a fewer number of different types of coinvestors individuals and institutions tend to have more personal entrepreneurial experience to invest more in very early stage ventures and to be more interested in financing inventors this study is relevant to community leaders and entrepreneurs in several ways first the project begins to ask pertinent research questions about types of informal investors who play particularly important roles in local economic development second a more differentiated view of the role of the informal investor is suggested because special characteristics of start up investors and technology based investors can be distinguished third some initial clues about identifying these key individuals emerge the study demonstrates a productive line of thinking for community leaders and entrepreneurs in the risk venture financing process

developing the informal venture capital market a review of the department of trade and industry s informal investment demonstration projects 1 this paper summarizes the key findings from the final review and evaluation of five informal investment demonstra tion projects department of trade and industry crown copyright is reproduced with the permission of thecontroller of hmso

informal risk capital in sweden and some international comparisons abstract in many countries there seems to be a shortage of risk capital i e equity or equity linked capital for entrepreneurial ventures seeking external capital as a consequence many entrepreneurial ventures are undercapitalized with a high loan capital burden there is some evidence from the u sa that informal investors provide an essential source of equity capital to entrepreneurial ventures however our knowledge about the informal risk capital markets is dominated by research from the u s a and there are few studies carried out in other countries this study represents the first description of the informal risk capital market in sweden the aim of the study is also to compare the characteristics of informal investors in sweden with those in the u sa and the u k information from 52 informal investors is used for the description of the informal risk capital market in sweden an international comparison is made by using the results of studies by gaston 1989 on informal investors in the u sa and mason et al 1991 on the informal risk capital market in the u k what about the informal risk capital market in sweden traditionally the tax system in sweden has not stimulated private wealth accumulation and there has been a tradition to seek formal institutional solutions to solve the problems faced by entrepreneurial ventures however in recent years there has been a growing interest in the potential role of informal investors to fill the equity capital gap for entrepreneurial ventures today there seems to be an informal risk capital market in sweden even if it is not very large in terms of investor demographics investment activity portfolio characteristics and the relationship between the informal investor and the portfolio firm the informal investors in sweden can be characterized in the following way they are predominantly male and they are financially well off one main characteristic is that they are very experienced entrepreneurs and it can be assumed that the majority of the informal investors have made their fortunes through a cash in of their businesses the informal investors in sweden seem to be frequent investors and their acceptance rate is rather high furthermore they seem to be rather careful in their evaluation of new investment opportunities and also invest large amounts of money in their informal investments the informal investors seem to make their investments in established firms and in more low tech industry sectors therefore they only partly seem to play a role infilling the equity capital gap for entrepreneurial ventures the informal investors relationship to their portfolio firms can be characterized as active but they are not involved to any large extent in daily operations the most common way of organizing the relationship is by way of active work on the board and by providing consulting help when needed what are the similarities and differences between informal investors in the u k the u s a and sweden this study shows that there are some similarities for example informal investors are predominantly male with an entrepreneurial background financially well off and they identify investment opportunities from friends and business associates on the other hand there seem to be some important differences for example informal investors in the u k and sweden seem to be older than those in the u s a furthermore informal investors in sweden invest a higher proportion of their wealth in informal investments compared to their counterparts in the u s a and the u k in terms of investment activities informal investors in the u k can be characterized as less sophisticated and ad hoc investors and they seldom make investments with other informal investors on the other hand informal investors in the u s a and sweden seem to be more professional in their investment activities i e they make many serious evaluations of new investment opportunities and they put rather large emphasis on the evaluation in terms of portfolio characteristics informal investors in sweden seem to take the lowest risks in their investment portfolios compared to their counterparts in the u s a and the u k finally informal investors in the u k the u s a and sweden work differently in relationship to their portfolio firms in the u k the relationship can be characterized as passive i e their involvement in the portfolio firms daily operations is usually rather low on the contrary the informal investors in the u s a work very actively in their portfolio firms the analysis shows that there seem to be two extreme categories of informal investors one extreme is represented by many of the informal investors in the u k they can be characterized as infrequent and less sophisticated investors who invest small amounts of money and work as rather passive investors the other extreme is represented by informal investors in the u s a they seem to be more professional and active in their informal investments informal investors in sweden show some similarities with their u s counter parts but they work less actively in the portfolio firms than do informal investors in the u s a the differences between the characteristics of informal investors in the u k the u s a and sweden are of course attributable to differences in contextual factors such as investment climate entrepreneurial traditions fiscal regimes regulatory environment and wealth distribution this implies that it may be difficult to copy measures to stimulate the informal risk capital market from one country to another

marry your like assortative mating and income inequality has there been an increase in positive assortative mating does assortative mating contribute to household income inequality data from the united states census bureau suggests there has been a rise in assortative mating additionally assortative mating aects household income inequality in particular if matching in 2005 between husbands and wives had been random instead of the pattern observed in the data then the gini coe cient would have fallen from the observed 0 43 to 0 34 so that income inequality would be smaller thus assortative mating is important for income inequality the high level of married female labor force participation in 2005 is important for this

educational assortative mating and household income inequality we use data from denmark germany norway the united kingdom and the united states to document the degree of educational assortative mating how it evolves over time and the extent to which it d

finance for smes a u k perspective this paper provide an overview of recent trends in the financing of smaller businesses in the u k it refers in particular to the findings of a major recent programme of work in this area funded by the economic and social research council in which the author participated this programme included the first national survey to address these issues since the bolton report of 1971 as well as a range of projects covering the finance of ethnic businesses and hi tech firms as well as the market for informal venture capital on the basis of this work and of the results of more recent follow up surveyors it is concluded that the evidence for general equity or debt gaps in the u k is weak if anything sme funding was too easy in the boom of the late 1980s it is argued that consideration could be given to the promotion through seedcorn funding of sme co operative or mutual guarantee schemes to reduce information asymmetry in u k credit markets

full reserve banking more cranks than brave heretics this paper analyses the main features and policy implications of full reserve banking frb proposals it argues that whilst frb advocates recognize the essential endogeneity of the money creation process they have failed to understand the post keynesian and monetary circuitist analyses of endogenous money which leads them to analytical errors including lending activity creates seigniorage privilege for commercial banks inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon the inability of distinguishing the actual from the planned supply of bank loans and money to be spent from money hoarded and the debt free money proposition the paper also argues that an frb system is likely to exacerbate financial instability for several reasons including the obsessive focus on commercial banks while ignoring non bank financial intermediaries and shadow banking a blind fascination for the safety and security of the payment system with little consideration for the financing needs of capitalist economies and an inherent deflationary bias furthermore frb arrangements would soon be undermined by the development of alternative near moneys finally frb will nullify the automatic stabilisers of fiscal policy and lead to a de facto dominance of monetary policy and unelected central bankers over fiscal policy and democratic decision making

the continuing muddles of monetary theory a steadfast refusal to face facts lionel robbins was concerned about the methodology of economic science when he discussed the relationship between theory and reality two of the examples of inappropriate relationships were taken from monetary economics such shortcomings continue among the worst are 1 is lm whereby the monetary authorities set the monetary base and the interest rate is market determined 2 the monetary base multiplier of bank deposits and the role of reserve ratios 3 the current three equation neoclassical consensus assuming perfect creditworthiness and hence no need for banks 4 the analysis of the evolution of money

local clearing unions as stabilizers of local economic systems a stock flow consistent perspective various examples of complementary currencies have recently emerged in europe in response to the impact of the 2007 financial crisis they have been variously labelled as social local and alternative money but their economic meaning has still to be discussed on the one hand they have been hailed as innovative tools for socio territorial policies with a focus on localist anti globalist and anti capitalist values on the other the emphasis on the value of currencies as instruments of alternative territorial development runs the risk of overshadowing issues concerning the specific features of such projects the first part of this paper puts forward an interpretation of the current situation as a crisis of the liquidity principle and suggests that the principle of clearing instead represents the primary point of reference for any institutional arrangement aimed at restoring a balanced relationship between lenders and borrowers a critical review of known european complementary monetary circuits is followed by examination of the sardex clearing system the paper then goes on to argue by means of a stock flow consistent model that complementary monetary circuits can serve to stabilise local economic systems in particular a local clearing union for local exchanges has the effect of stabilising the profits of firms while attenuating the impact of the credit crunch at same time

a response to critiques of full reserve banking in this response to critiques of full reserve banking or sovereign money proposals we challenge four of the main criticisms made by fontana and sawyer this issue i the impact of the proposal on government finances and fiscal policy ii the impact of the proposal on the supply of credit to the real economy iii the danger of private money creation re emerging in the shadow banking sector and iv the argument that shadow banking not commercial banking is the real source of financial instability

the informal venture capital market aspects of scale and market efficiency abstract risk capital is a resource essential to the formation and growth of entrepreneurial ventures in a society that is increasingly dependent upon innovation and entrepreneurship for its economic vitality the performance of the venture capital markets is a matter of fundamental concern to entrepreneurs venture investors and to public officials this article deals with the informal venture capital market the market in which entrepreneurs raise equity type financing from private investors business angels the informal venture capital market is virtually invisible and often misunderstood it is composed of a diverse and diffuse population of individuals of means many of whom have created their own successful ventures there are no directories of individual venture investors and no public records of their investment transactions consequently the informal venture capital market poses many unanswered questions the author discusses two aspects of the informal venture capital market questions of scale and market efficiency the discussion draws upon existing research to extract and synthesize data that provide a reasonable basis for inferences about scale and efficiency private venture investors tend to be self made individuals with substantial business and financial experience and with a net worth of 1 million or more the author estimates that the number of private venture investors in the united states is at least 250 000 of whom about 100 000 are active in any given year by providing seed capital for ventures that subsequently raise funds from professional venture investors or in the public equity markets and equity financing for privately held firms that are growing faster than internal cash flow can support private investors fill gaps in the institutional equity markets the author estimates that private investors manage a portfolio of venture investments aggregating in the neighborhood of 50 billion about twice the capital managed by professional venture investors by participating in smaller transactions private investors finance over five times as many entrepreneurs as professional venture investors 20 000 or more firms per year compared to two or three thousand the typical angel backed venture raises about 250 000 from three or more private investors despite the apparent scale of the informal venture capital market the author cites evidence that the market is relatively inefficient it is a market characterized by limited information about investors and investment opportunities furthermore many entrepreneurs and private investors are unfamiliar with the techniques of successful venture financing the author s scale and efficiency inferences coupled with evidence documenting gaps between private and social returns from innovation prompt questions about public as well as private initiatives to enhance the efficiency of the informal venture capital market the article concludes with a discussion of venture capital network inc vcn an experimental effort to enhance the efficiency of the informal venture capital market vcn s procedures and performance are described followed by a discussion of the lessons learned during the first two years of the experiment

estimating marginal returns to education this paper estimates marginal returns to college for individuals induced to enroll in college by different marginal policy changes the recent instrumental variables literature seeks to estimate this parameter but in general it does so only under strong assumptions that are tested and found wanting we show how to utilize economic theory and local instrumental variables estimators to estimate the effect of marginal policy changes our empirical analysis shows that returns are higher for individuals with values of unobservables that make them more likely to attend college we contrast our estimates with iv estimates of the return to schooling

the size of the informal venture capital market in the united kingdom despite its undoubted importance to the financing of entrepreneurial ventures there are few reliable measures of the size of the informal venture capital market this paper reviews three methods used to generate such estimates market based approaches firm based approaches and the capture recapture approach and develops an alternative approach that is based on scaling up from the visible segment of this market represented by business angel networks this methodology is applied to provide the first formal estimate of the size of the informal venture capital market in the united kingdom informal venture capital investment is shown to broadly equate to the amount of institutional venture capital provided to start up and early stage ventures reflecting the smaller average size of investments in the informal venture capital market however eight times as many businesses raise finance from business angels than from institutional venture capital funds

the political economy of monetary reform proposals to reform money and banking in the wake of the recent crisis appeal to populist politics on the left and the right if banks caused the crisis then their power must be curtailed to prevent a recurrence many of these proposals echo ideas which gained attention in the wake of the great depression the purpose of this paper is to consider proposals for reform of money and banking current in canada in the 1930s in particular plans for social credit and for social reconstruction some of which were translated into policy while both sets of ideas involved a markedly increased role for the state in money and banking the underlying ontology political philosophy and theoretical rationale were rather different the result was different views as to the nature of the problem and the feasibility of different policy solutions

investment in schooling and the marriage market we present a model in which investment in schooling generates two kinds of returns the labor market return resulting from higher wages and a marriagemarket return defined as the impact of schooling on the marital surplus share one can extract men and women may have different incentives to invest in schooling because of different market wages or household roles this asymmetry can yield a mixed equilibrium with some educated individuals marrying uneducated spouses when the labor market returns to schooling rises home production demands less time and the traditional spousal labor division norms weaken more women may invest in schooling than men

failures on the market and market failures a complementary currency for bankruptcy procedures one of the most widespread implications of the great financial crisis has been the increase in bankruptcies across advanced economies the traditional approach to the problem of insolvencies is constrained by deeply ingrained concepts of money and credit and by the institutions in which those concepts are embodied according to which the only way to discharge a debt is a payment in money this paper deals with a peculiar project elaborated within the italian ministry of justice to address the problem of the growing amount of uncollectibles involved in bankruptcy procedures the project entails a new form of articulation between money and credit which overturns the traditional logic of liquidation by transforming creditors of bankruptcy procedures passively waiting to be paid into active operators capable of sustaining demand this goal is pursued by converting part of their credits into purchasing power that can be immediately spent in the auctions for the assets of bankrupt companies thereby increasing the efficiency of bankruptcy procedures accelerating the reallocation of assets and maximising the satisfaction of creditors the projects may be seen as a complementary currency characterised by a functional and not by a territorial delimitation it incorporates some of the features that have been recently experimented with with varying degree of success within both the official and alternative monetary systems endogenous money creation targeted loans and demurrage the present paper aims at illustrating the theoretical underpinnings of the project and its implication for the question of devising an alternative to current financial institutions

inequality among american families with children 1975 to 2005 from 1975 to 2005 the variance in incomes of american families with children increased by two thirds in attempting to explain this trend labor market studies emphasize the rising pay of college graduates while demographers typically highlight the implications of family structural changes across time in this article we join these lines of research by conceiving of income inequality as the joint product of the distribution of earnings in the labor market and the pooling of incomes in families we develop this framework with a decomposition of family income inequality using annual data from the march current population survey our analysis shows that disparities in education and single parenthood contributed to income inequality but rising educational attainment and women s employment offset these effects most of the increase in family income inequality was due to increasing within group inequality which was widely shared across family types and levels of schooling

some puzzles about money finance and the monetary circuit this paper discusses three puzzles about money and finance having to do with the velocity of circulation the marxian concept of the monetary circuit and the deceptively simple question of whether there is enough money in existence at any point in time to purchase the full value of output these issues take on particular significance at times of economic and financial crisis but have often been neglected by the mainstream of the economics profession leaving the field to keynes s brave heretics

inequality and poverty in united states the effects of rising dispersion of men s earnings and changing family behaviour using semiparametric density estimation techniques we analyse the effect of rising dispersion of men s earnings and related changes in family behaviour on increasing inequality in the distribution of family income in the united states for the period 1969 1989 the growing dispersion of men s earnings and changing family structure can account for most of the rise in family income inequality by contrast the increase in labour force participation by women offset this trend inequality grew at a slower rate in the 1990s than in earlier decades largely because of stabilization in the relative earnings of men from low income families

towards an accounting view on money banking and the macroeconomy history empirics theory in this paper three views are considered which are traditionally associated with money cranks and brave heretics the first is that the credit nature of money has macroeconomic significance the second is that financial development can be bad for economic growth the third is that macroeconomic models need to be explicitly monetary macroeconomic models it is argued that in each of these three areas there has been a recent shift in mainstream economic opinion this suggests new opportunities for meaningful debate between heterodox and orthodox schools on money and finance it is further argued following skaggs 2003 that a common meeting ground could be an accounting view of economics this is a mode of macroeconomic analysis which explicitly uses accounting definitions identities that credit is also debt or that flows of a variable affect the stock of that variable or accounting methods e g decomposing different kinds of liabilities or linking flows of liquidity to flows of transactions to structure and direct the analysis the accounting view is highly pluralist yet clearly defined i discuss its applications to each of the three views

making sense of a crank case monetary diversity in argentina 1999 2003 based on empirical data this study discusses the introduction acceptance and circulation of two complementary currencies in argentina that do not fit well in the main approaches to the nature of money these two monetary circuits provincial and community currencies were introduced as units of account to denominate the value of debt and circulated as means of payment to overcome monetary stringency during the crisis of 1999 2003 after discussing several theories on the nature of money we reflect on the institutional significance of currency circuits as concurrent and rather stable pairs of trade and money we suggest that several theories of money need to be combined to account for the variety and heterogeneity of daily monetary practices in a broad spectrum of countries

how much does sorting increase inequality some commentators argue that increased sorting into internally homogeneous neighborhoods schools and marriages is radically polarizing society calibration of a formal model however suggests that the steady state standard deviation of education would increase only 1 7 percent if the correlation between neighbors education doubled and would fall only 1 6 percent if educational sorting by neighborhood disappeared the steady state standard deviation of education would grow 1 percent if the correlation between spouses education increased from 0 6 to 0 8 in fact marital and neighborhood sorting have been stable or even decreasing historically sorting has somewhat more significant effects on intergenerational mobility than on inequality

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

informal risk capital investors investment patterns on the east coast of the u s a abstract in this study we profile a group of informal investors their investment criteria and the nature of their referral network the study supports the findings of several earlier studies it indicates the existence of an extensive informal investment community on the east coast of the u s a which can provide substantial financial resources to startup and young firms a full 58 of the sample investments were in startups a huge proportion compared with formal venture capital sources the study further supports earlier findings that this group is difficult to locate for entrepreneurs and researchers alike this opaque market consists primarily of friends and business colleagues who individually provide modest sums of money 20 000 50 000 but are often able to use their network to assemble a group of investors who will sponsor the entire funding requirement 130 informal investors report that in three years they and their networks raised 38 million dollars to support 286 new venture proposals there are also encouraging indications that these angels are both enthusiastic and persistent many of them claim that they have achieved higher returns via angel activity than any other investment options that they have tried of the angels who did better with alternative investment options more than 80 are still prepared to make further investments even those who reported failed investments in the informal risk capital market remain supportive over 65 indicate a willingness to invest again the criteria by which the angels screen the proposals differ markedly from those of the venture capital community in particular the angels do not appear to be interested in a thorough business plan a sine qua non for venture capitalists unlike the capital firms angels are not interested in competitive insulation they do not limit their investments to industries that are appealing or with which they are familiar nor do they care very much about the degree to which the entrepreneur has identified competition however they are in close agreement with the venture capital community in their concern with the management ability of the venture team and a requirement that there be a clear demonstrated need for the product or service preferably in a market with large potential the study has shed some light on the structure of the referral networks of angels though we do not know from this study how the respondents themselves first heard of the ventures that were described in this survey we do know that their referral network is composed primarily of friends and business colleagues to whom they refer as much as 60 of the proposals that they receive and in which they themselves eventually invest thus they pass on serious opportunities to their network their referees are inclined to be very supportive in our sample almost 75 of them also invested in the venture the current strategy for informal investors is to approach mainly close contacts these are inclined to be supportive 85 also invested in the venture and to follow a trusting investment behavior pattern relying mainly on the recommendation of the angel this strategem ensures that the total capital requirements are met via the network however given the results of this study the angels might be well advised not to stop here they might also approach at least one professional only a small proportion of professionals were approached by our sample of angels less than 30 as the study shows professionals are more effective at selecting successful ventures thus a mixed strategy may be called for use mainly trusting referees to ensure full capitalization and a limited number of professional referees to screen the proposals this will help ensure that those proposals that do get supported by the more trusting members of the network have been competently screened thus increasing to the probability of venture success a discriminant analysis revealed some useful pointers in helping the informal investor select successful ventures first it is critical to select only ventures in which the entrepeneur can be relied on to evaluate the risks of the ventures and manage these risks well angels do not need entrepreneurs that will gamble with their money equally important is to avoid placing too much credence on highly articulate sales pitches by the venture team or too much reliance on ventures in which the main emphasis is on product and proprietary protection rather insist on being shown clear evidence that the product or service has channel and or market acceptance it is also important for angels to stick to investments where they know the industry well and to back venture teams with a solid reputation and a propensity to get involved in the details rather than gloss them over as in the case of studies of venture capital investments competitive insulation in the early stages of the venture is also important

angel investors and the market for angel investments abstract the market for angel capital where individuals provide risk capital directly to small private often start up firms operates in almost total obscurity very little is known about the market s size scope the type of firms that raise angel capital and the types of individuals that provide it in this paper i present evidence on the angel market gathered from my field research which has involved interviews with more than a dozen angel investors in the dallas fort worth area the angel market appears to be a very heterogeneous and localized market with that qualification in mind i present some common characteristics of the angels i interviewed and how they select and monitor their investments i pay particular attention to how they address adverse selection and moral hazard problems i compare their behavior with venture capital limited partnerships in the more formal market for venture capital

government monetary and fiscal operations generalising the endogenous money approach the traditional endogenous money approach can be generalised substantially by including the insights of modern money theory regarding the necessary coordination of fiscal and monetary policies a monetarily sovereign government is composed of two entities involved in the issuance and redemption of government monetary instruments as such one should include the role of the treasury in monetary policy and the role of the central bank in fiscal policy the paper suggests a simple way to model that interaction shows some of the theoretical insights that can be drawn from that interaction and illustrates the relevance of that interaction with the monetary and fiscal practices of the us treasury and the federal reserve over the past century times of stress in the monetary system such as the recent great recession usually bring to light more forcefully this necessary interaction

money reform and the eurozone crisis panacea utopia or grassroots alternative the economic crisis that broke out in 2007 2008 and the ongoing crisis in the eurozone has given a new urgency to discussions about alternatives to capitalism and a new salience to proposals for monetary reform and for grassroots economic alternatives using marx and engel s concept of utopianism as an analytical tool to distinguish between what is the work of cranks and what of brave heretics the paper examines four monetary responses to the crisis 1 positive money s call for a state monopoly on money issuance 2 the reintroduction of national currencies in particular the drachma 3 proposals for state issued parallel currencies and 4 grassroots or subaltern money networks of various types the paper argues that the dominance of neoliberal ideology at a european union level means that proposals for monetary reform at the international and national level are unlikely to be taken seriously by elites and consequently seem utopian in marxian terms there seems to be little political will to engage with the complexities of and potential opportunities of a more diverse monetary architecture within the eurozone and a perceived need to discipline potentially irresponsible governments like greece s syriza although responsible actors in the north of the eurozone get more leeway the potential of grassroots alternatives is also too often overstated while alternative currency networks developed as part of the greek crisis are not particularly well developed alternative currency networks could work as sites of innovation normalising the idea that there are progressive alternatives to eurozone breakup

sorting and long run inequality many social commentators have raised concerns over the possibility that increased sorting in society may lead to greater inequality to investigate this we construct a dynamic model of intergenerational education acquisition fertility and marital sorting and parameterize the steady state to match several basic empirical endings we end that increased sorting will signiecantly increase income inequality four factors are important to our endings a negative correlation between fertility and education a decreasing marginal effect of parental education on children s years of education wages that are sensitive to the relative supply of skilled workers and borrowing constraints that affect educational attainment for some low income households

career family and the well being of college educated women i report on measures of life satisfaction and emotional well being across groups of college educated women based on whether they have a career a family both or neither the biggest premium to life satisfaction is associated with having a family while there is also a life satisfaction premium associated with having a career women do not seem able to double up on these premiums a qualitatively similar picture emerges from the emotional well being data among college educated women with family those with a career spend a larger share of their day unhappy sad stressed and tired