- Adam Smith Hall, Kriekenpitplein 21-22, 3584 EC Utrecht (The Netherlands)
Samuele Murtinu
Utrecht University, School of Economics, Faculty Member
Academics, pundits, and policymakers have recently called for a stronger governmental role in the economy to tackle social issues such as inequality and grand challenges like global warming. Despite a general recognition among economists... more
Academics, pundits, and policymakers have recently called for a stronger governmental role in the economy to tackle social issues such as inequality and grand challenges like global warming. Despite a general recognition among economists and management scholars that government efforts to guide and control innovation or subsidize private entrepreneurs have failed to yield results, these calls also describe an entrepreneurial state in which bureaucrats, not entrepreneurs, direct not only basic research but also applied technological development. Building on the notions of economic competence and ownership competence we argue that even well-intentioned and strongly motivated public actors lack the ability to manage the process of innovation, especially under Knightian uncertainty. As stewards of resources owned by the public, government bureaucrats do not exercise the ultimate responsibility that comes with ownership. Moreover, government ownership of firms and labs and government inte...
Research Interests:
Inflection points, kinks, and jumps identify places where the relationship between dependent and independent variables switches in some important way. Although these switch points are often mentioned in management research, their presence... more
Inflection points, kinks, and jumps identify places where the relationship between dependent and independent variables switches in some important way. Although these switch points are often mentioned in management research, their presence in the data is either ignored, or postulated ad hoc by testing arbitrarily specified functional forms (e.g., U or inverted U-shaped relationships). This is problematic if we want accurate tests for our theories. To address this issue, we provide an integrative framework for the identification of nonlinearities. Our approach constitutes a precursor step that researchers will want to conduct before deciding which estimation model may be most appropriate. We also provide instructions on how our approach can be implemented, and a replicable illustration of the procedure. Our illustrative example shows how the identification of endogenous switch points may lead to significantly different conclusions compared to those obtained when switch points are igno...
Research Interests:
Grounding on the literature on resource dependence, board political capital and principal-principal conflicts, I conceptualize governmental minority shareholding as a governance strategy through which ventures access information about... more
Grounding on the literature on resource dependence, board political capital and principal-principal conflicts, I conceptualize governmental minority shareholding as a governance strategy through which ventures access information about future policy shifts and better calibrate their decisions before policy implementation. I test these arguments on multi-country firm-level longitudinal data about European venture capital (VC)-backed and comparable non-VC-backed companies. By means of a difference-in-differences methodology and exploiting the staggered announcement of tax reforms across countries, I show that public VC-backed companies after a tax reform announcement show higher productivity than non-VC-backed ventures, and this effect lasts four years. After decomposing productivity, the post-announcement effect of public VC backing is mainly due to both an output effect (sales value increase) and an enhanced efficiency in the labor factor.
Research Interests: Business, Entrepreneurship, Government, Corporate Governance, Taxation, and 15 moreGovernance, Business Taxation, Productivity, Corporate Income Taxation, Efficiency and Productivity Analysis, Business and Management, Productivity Analysis, Strategic Entrepreneurship, Shareholder Activism, Board of Directors, Minority Shareholders rights, Shareholder Value, Agency Costs, Politics and Government, and Minority Shareholder
Research Interests: Business, Entrepreneurship, Finance, European Studies, Economics, and 15 moreEconometrics, Entrepreneurial Economics, Empirical Finance, Applied Econometrics, Banking, Corporate Finance, Entrepreneurial Finance, European Union, Corporate Strategy, Business Management, Entreprenuership, Empirical Research, Empirical Study, Finance and Accounting, and Banking and Finance
The objective of the course is to describe the features of the VICO infrastructure (click here for further information), highlighting its potential applications to early stage researchers interested in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial... more
The objective of the course is to describe the features of the VICO infrastructure (click here for further information), highlighting its potential applications to early stage researchers interested in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial finance, practitioners and policy makers. The course also aims at providing a practical training for the exploitation of the VICO infrastructure.
New technology-based firms in Europe: market penetration, public venture capital and timing of investment
Research Interests:
Many works at the crossroads of entrepreneurship and finance have studied corporate venture capital (CVC)’s decision-making and performance. We explore a neglected aspect in this literature: the presence of families as dominant owners of... more
Many works at the crossroads of entrepreneurship and finance have studied corporate venture capital (CVC)’s decision-making and performance. We explore a neglected aspect in this literature: the presence of families as dominant owners of CVCs’ parent organizations. Our data reveal that families are a key engine of corporate venturing activities: about one third of CVC deals in the US from 2000 to 2017 originated from family firms. Moreover, we find marked differences in the strategies and outcomes of family and non-family CVCs. Family CVCs syndicate more, join larger syndicates, and invest in ventures closer to the parent in terms of geography and industry - especially when the venture is informationally opaque and when the parent’s CEO is a family member. Family CVCs add more value to their portfolio companies, which exhibit a higher likelihood of successful exit, better post-IPO market performance, and more valuable patents after the IPO. Family CVCs are also better able than non-family CVCs to generate shareholder value for their parent companies. Finally, family CVCs invest more during a financial crisis. Collectively, our findings are consistent with the view that family control entails a mix of risk mitigation and long-term preferences beneficial for venturing activities.
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In this Editorial, we begin by sketching out two areas that we believe will prove promising for researchers in international entrepreneurship in the foreseeable future: (i) asymmetric information leading to adverse selection; and (ii) the... more
In this Editorial, we begin by sketching out two areas that we believe will prove promising for researchers in international entrepreneurship in the foreseeable future: (i) asymmetric information leading to adverse selection; and (ii) the adoption of emerging digital technologies, including social media, aimed at reducing asymmetric information, via the development of informational capabilities. We then summarize the articles in the special issue and how they encompass the above areas. We also suggest ways in which some of these articles could be extended to further develop and broaden the above areas, so to solve entrepreneurship-driven research and/or policy questions. In sum, we see a successful path forward for researchers and policy makers in international entrepreneurship over the coming decade via embracing interdisciplinary research to expand and deepen research questions.
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Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data from 2006-2017 on 130,000 firms in 130 countries across the globe, we document that women-led firms tend to underperform men-led firms. The main contribution of this work is to shed light... more
Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data from 2006-2017 on 130,000 firms in 130 countries across the globe, we document that women-led firms tend to underperform men-led firms. The main contribution of this work is to shed light on three mechanisms that help explain the underperformance: finance, technology, and labor. First, women-led firms are investing less in fixed assets and obtaining less credit from banks. Second, women-led firms are less likely to use information technology to manage their businesses. Third, women-led firms tend to employ more skilled and educated workers, and are more likely to provide workers with permanent contracts, hence incurring higher labor costs. Interestingly, in our data, women top managers do not perceive themselves facing more business obstacles than their male counterparts do.
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Research Interests: Economics, Innovation Policy, Collaboration, Policy, Strategic Alliances, and 15 moreEconomics of Innovation, Management of Innovation, Technological Innovation, Collaboration Technology, Public Policy Analysis, Business and Management, Signals, Alliances, Salience, Public subsidies, Subsidies, Subsidy, Public Policy, Disaster Recovery Using Operations Research and Management Science, and Strategy and Management
Research Interests: Business, Finance, Economics, Economic Geography, International Business, and 15 moreBusiness Taxation, Corporate Income Taxation, International Business Law, Applied Economics, International Business Strategy, International Business Management, Business and Management, Business studies, Global value chain, Global Value Chains, Efficiency, International Business Taxation, International Economics and Business, International corporate tax, and International and Local Taxation
Research Interests: Economics, Macroeconomics, Public Administration, Political Economy, Literacy, and 15 moreInformation Literacy, Government, Political Science, International Political Economy, Electoral Behavior, Electoral Systems, Elections, Fiscal policy, Macro Economics, Fiscal Policy and debt Management, Elections and Voting Behavior, Electoral Studies, Election, Government transparency, and National government
Research Interests: Business, Entrepreneurship, Economics, Entrepreneurial Economics, Green Economics, and 15 moreEntrepreneurship Policy, Entrepreneurial Finance, Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Environmental Sustainability, Green Technology, New Technology Ventures, Entrepreneurship and Small business Management, Green Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur, New Venture Creation, Entrepreneurial intention, Entreprenurship and Green Business, Green and Sustainability Practices, Micro and Small Business Entrepreneurship, and Financing of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Research Interests: Business, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Economics, Financial Economics, and 15 moreEntrepreneurial Economics, Family Business, Mutual Funds, Corporate Finance, Entrepreneurial Finance, Human Capital, Entrepreneurship and Small business Management, Business and Management, Entrepreneur, Founder, Founder Effects, Entrepreneurial Skills, Growth and Development of Entrepreneurial Ventures, Micro and Small Business Entrepreneurship, and Financing of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Research Interests: Business, Finance, Foreign Direct Investment, Mergers and Acquisitions, Financial Markets And Institution, and 15 moreInvestment analysis and valuation, Investment Portfolio Management, Investments, Institutional Investors, Institutions, Investment, Financial Institutions, Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management, Investor Behaviour, Investment funds, Asset and investment valuation, Investors, Asset, Acquisitions, and Cross Border Management
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... aPolitecnico di Milano, Via Lambruschini 4/b, 20156, Milano, Italy. E-mail: annalisa.croce@polimi. it. bUniversidad Complutense de Madrid, 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain. ... Tyebjee and Bruno, 1984). They also... more
... aPolitecnico di Milano, Via Lambruschini 4/b, 20156, Milano, Italy. E-mail: annalisa.croce@polimi. it. bUniversidad Complutense de Madrid, 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain. ... Tyebjee and Bruno, 1984). They also 'build winners' providing portfolio firms with ...
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Policymakers, commentators, and academics have called for a Great Reset, a deepseated overhaul of the organization of the global economy. Some suggest that management theory needs a reset of its own. We argue that Great Reset proponents... more
Policymakers, commentators, and academics have called for a Great Reset, a deepseated overhaul of the organization of the global economy. Some suggest that management theory needs a reset of its own. We argue that Great Reset proponents fail to appreciate the power of markets to bring about desirable social outcomes and are overly sanguine about what governments can do to alleviate alleged market failures. These views also drive the increasing enthusiasm for stakeholder governance, an increased government role in innovation, and the call for new metrics for assessing outcomes, all part of the Great Reset narrative. And yet, concentrating more decision power in the hands of governments, implementing diffuse metrics, and diluting effective ownership can hamper the functioning of markets, encourage crony capitalism, and
reduce the resources that are available for dealing with grand challenges. Existing management theory provides powerful tools for understanding the benefits and costs of alternative institutional arrangements; abandoning these tools will push management theory to the sideline in policy debates.
reduce the resources that are available for dealing with grand challenges. Existing management theory provides powerful tools for understanding the benefits and costs of alternative institutional arrangements; abandoning these tools will push management theory to the sideline in policy debates.
Research Interests:
Grounding on the literature on resource dependence, board political capital and principal-principal conflicts, I conceptualize governmental minority shareholding as a governance strategy through which ventures access information about... more
Grounding on the literature on resource dependence, board political capital and principal-principal conflicts, I conceptualize governmental minority shareholding as a governance strategy through which ventures access information about future policy shifts and better calibrate their decisions before policy implementation. I test these arguments on multi-country firm-level longitudinal data about European venture capital (VC)-backed and comparable non-VC-backed companies. By means of a difference-in-differences methodology and exploiting the staggered announcement of tax reforms across countries, I show that public VC-backed companies after a tax reform announcement show higher productivity than non-VC-backed ventures, and this effect lasts four years. After decomposing productivity, the post-announcement effect of public VC backing is mainly due to both an output effect (sales value increase) and an enhanced efficiency in the labor factor.
Research Interests: Entrepreneurship, Government, Corporate Governance, Taxation, Governance, and 15 moreBusiness Taxation, Productivity, Corporate Income Taxation, Tax Policy, Venture Capital, Efficiency and Productivity Analysis, Productivity Analysis, Shareholder Activism, Board of Directors, Minority Shareholders rights, Shareholder Value, Agency Costs, Politics and Government, Minority Shareholder, and Venture Capital and Private Equity
Tobit models have been used to address several questions in management research. Reviewing existing practices and applications, we discuss three challenges: (a) assumptions about the nature of data, (b) apparent interchangeability between... more
Tobit models have been used to address several questions in management research. Reviewing existing practices and applications, we discuss three challenges: (a) assumptions about the nature of data, (b) apparent interchangeability between censoring and selection bias, and (c) potential violations of key assumptions in the distribution
of residuals. Empirically analyzing the relationship between import competition and industry diversification, we contrast Tobit models with results from other estimators and show the conditions that make Tobit a suitable empirical approach. Finally, we offer suggestions and guidelines on how to use Tobit models to deal with censored data in strategy research.
of residuals. Empirically analyzing the relationship between import competition and industry diversification, we contrast Tobit models with results from other estimators and show the conditions that make Tobit a suitable empirical approach. Finally, we offer suggestions and guidelines on how to use Tobit models to deal with censored data in strategy research.
Research Interests: Management, Econometrics, International Business, Applied Econometrics, Monte Carlo Simulation, and 15 moreStrategic Management, Modeling and Simulation, Global Business Management (MBA), Strategy (Business), Strategy, Simulation, Empirical Research, Censored data, Replication, Empirical evidence, Censored/Truncated models, Tobit Model, Interval Censored Data, Tobit Regression, and Tobit regression model
In this paper, we investigate if there is a link between female ownership and obstacles to firm growth. Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data collected in 2006 and 2010 for over 20,000 firms in 26 Latin American and the... more
In this paper, we investigate if there is a link between female ownership and obstacles to firm growth. Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data collected in 2006 and 2010 for over 20,000 firms in 26 Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) countries, we find strong evidence that female-owned firms (FOFs) are associated with more obstacles related to crime, theft and disorder, and to practices of competitors in the informal sector than male-owned firms (MOFs). However, FOFs and MOFs face similar levels of obstacles related to corruption and access to finance. We further examine the effect of female ownership on firm performance and find that FOFs exhibit significantly higher labor productivity than MOFs, while FOFs and MOFs experience similar sales growth. Our results are robust after controlling for relevant country-level macroeconomic and governance variables, as well as the potential endogeneity arisen from selection bias.
Research Interests: Finance, Latin American Studies, Gender Studies, Development Economics, Financial Economics, and 15 moreDevelopment Studies, International Development, Economic Growth, Gender, Corporate Finance, Economic Development, Development, Institutions and Economic growth, Economics of Corruption, Female entrepreneurship, Latin America, Corruption, Economic growth and development, Foreign Ownership, and Financial Constraint
The taxation of the multinational enterprise (MNE) has been a continuing concern for policy-makers. We argue that the changing nature of the mobile MNE (e.g., its improved ability to fine-slice the value chain and disperse it... more
The taxation of the multinational enterprise (MNE) has been a continuing concern for policy-makers. We argue that the changing nature of the mobile MNE (e.g., its improved ability to fine-slice the value chain and disperse it geographically) makes it increasingly important to rethink current tax policies. First, there should be more focus on the inefficiencies that arise when taxation leads to the inefficient location of MNE activities. Thus, MNEs may shift activities to low-tax jurisdictions that offer lucrative pecuniary and non-pecuniary incentives, but do not enable their investments to maximize their contribution to global value creation. Second, international tax regimes should ensure that MNEs pay for their consumption of local public goods, and public finance scholars have long known that the taxation-based distortions are minimized when the tax objects are immobile. However, the bulk of current tax policies are aimed at corporate profits that are both poor proxies for the consumption of local public goods as well as extremely mobile. Integrating theory from international business, public finance and economic geography, our analysis demonstrates that moving the incidence of taxation from corporate profits to dividends and consumption would unambiguously improve both wealth creation and efficiency.
Research Interests: Finance, Economic Geography, Public Finance, International Business, Taxation, and 38 moreBusiness Taxation, Multinational Enterprises, Corporate Income Taxation, State And Local Public Finance, Tax Policy, Internationalisation (Business), International Business Law, Economic geography (Geography) (Geography), International Finance, International Taxation, Multinational Corporations, Value Chain, International Business Strategy, Internationalisation strategies of multinational enterprises, International Business Management, PUBLIC FINANCE AND INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS, MNC Strategy, Multinationals, Multinational, Public Goods, Value Creation, International Tax Policy, Global value chain, Global Value Chains, Wealth, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Corporations, Efficiency, internationalization of MNEs, International tax policy and Foreign Direct Investements, Multinational Companies, Wealth Creation, International Business Taxation, International Economics and Business, International Tax, MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION, International corporate tax, Multinational Company, and International and Local Taxation
We model a two-parties electoral game in an environment where voters are imperfectly informed on the administrative ability of each party. In equilibrium, parties try to manipulate voters’ beliefs and implement fiscal policies that are... more
We model a two-parties electoral game in an environment where voters are imperfectly informed on the administrative ability of each party. In equilibrium, parties try to manipulate voters’ beliefs and implement fiscal policies that are looser than the social optimum. The size of this deviation from optimality increases with the incentive of parties to manipulate, the voters’ information disadvantage, and the interaction between these two elements. We test our theoretical predictions on a sample of 23 OECD countries over the period 1999–2008. We measure the incentive to manipulate voters’ beliefs through the ideological cohesion of the cabinet (i.e. government polarization), and the scope to manipulate such beliefs through the level of voters’ economic literacy. We find that polarized governments tend to worsen fiscal balances, and this is more likely in countries where the voters’ economic literacy is low. However, such tendency vanishes as literacy increases, suggesting that polarization leads to biased fiscal policies only when there is enough room for manipulation. Our results remain stable after controlling for potentially confounding differences across countries and over time – such as electoral, institutional and voting systems, cabinet fractionalization, individuals’ education attainments, information diffusion, voter turnout and political budget cycles –, several types of falsification tests, time dynamics and unobserved heterogeneity.
Research Interests: Public Finance, Macroeconomics, Public Administration, Political Economy, Literacy, and 24 moreVoting Behavior, Information Literacy, Government, Political Science, International Political Economy, Public Budgeting and Finance, Public Budgeting, Electoral Behavior, Electoral Systems, Elections, Fiscal policy, Macro Economics, Fiscal Policy and debt Management, Public Policy Analysis, Voting, Elections and Voting Behavior, Electoral Studies, Voter Turnout (Electoral Behavior), Voter Behaviour, Election, Government transparency, Public Administration and Policy, National government, and Public Policy
We test whether born-to-be-green represents a signal toward potential venture capital (VC) investors - on a sample of Italian, independent, unlisted, high-tech entrepreneurial firms. We employ several identification strategies by... more
We test whether born-to-be-green represents a signal toward potential venture capital (VC) investors - on a sample of Italian, independent, unlisted, high-tech entrepreneurial firms. We employ several identification strategies by controlling for the major potential signals, and the alleged selection bias between green and non-green entrepreneurs. We exploit firm-level information about the “active searching for VC financing”. Alternatively, we exploit the cross-region variation in local government laws to foster green innovations in an Instrumental Variables setting. Our results show that running a green business per se is not correlated with the likelihood to receive VC, while the perception to run a green business is strongly and positively correlated with the likelihood to get VC. When investigating the contingencies associated to the effectiveness of the born-to-be-green signal – and the entrepreneurial ability to sell it – we find that only entrepreneurs who run a green business and perceive it as green are more likely to get VC funding.
Research Interests: Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Economics, Green Economics, Social Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Policy, and 27 moreEntrepreneurial Finance, Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Venture Capital, Technology Entrepreneurship, Environmental Sustainability, THE ROLE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN INNOVATION, Green Technology, New Technology Ventures, Entrepreneurship and Small business Management, Startups, Green Entrepreneurship, Environmental & Green Products, Private equity and venture capital, Entrepreneur, Venture Capital, Start ups, New Venture Creation, Entrepreneurial intention, Venture-Capital, New ventures, Start-Up, Entreprenurship and Green Business, Green and Sustainability Practices, Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Micro and Small Business Entrepreneurship, Venture Capitalist, Venture Capital and Private Equity, and Financing of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Despite the scientific evidence on the positive effect of venture capital (VC) on portfolio firm performance, such evidence badly pulls up alongside the non-negligible number of entrepreneurial firms that receive an offer by a VC fund and... more
Despite the scientific evidence on the positive effect of venture capital (VC) on portfolio firm performance, such evidence badly pulls up alongside the non-negligible number of entrepreneurial firms that receive an offer by a VC fund and choose to refuse it. We investigate the microeconomic determinants behind the missed realizations of VC investor-investee dyads by focusing on the Italian VC market, that represents an ideal test bed for our identification strategy. We investigate firm characteristics that lead entrepreneurs to refuse VC, which motivations are behind this choice and which is the impact on firm growth.
Research Interests: Entrepreneurship, Finance, Economics, Financial Economics, Entrepreneurial Economics, and 27 moreVenture Founding, Family Business, Teams, Corporate Finance, Entrepreneurial Finance, Human Capital, Venture Capital, Technology Entrepreneurship, THE ROLE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN INNOVATION, New Technology Ventures, Entrepreneurship and Small business Management, Private equity and venture capital, Entrepreneur, Venture Capital, Start ups, New Venture Creation, The Role of Micro Finance and Venture Capital in Entrepreneurship Development, Founder, Venture-Capital, New ventures, Founder Effects, Venture Capital Strategy, Entrepreneurial Skills, Growth and Development of Entrepreneurial Ventures, Micro and Small Business Entrepreneurship, Venture Capitalist, Venture Capital and Private Equity, and Financing of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
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In this work we investigate the determinants of sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investments’ stock prices. We focus on the location of the investment (domestic versus cross-border investments) and on the target industry (strategic versus... more
In this work we investigate the determinants of sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investments’ stock prices. We focus on the location of the investment (domestic versus cross-border investments) and on the target industry (strategic versus non-strategic). We use a new dataset on SWF investments and stock prices, whose number of transactions is comparable with that used in the most popular SWF studies. To control for the endogeneity of the location and target industry choices, we use two identification strategies: an OLS estimation with residuals clustered at SWF country-level and SWF-specific fixed effects to control for the quality/experience of each fund, and an Instrumental Variables (IV) estimation. Our results show that on a 50-days window around the SWF investment, cross-border investments have an average higher increase in stock price than domestic SWF investments. While, on the same time window, SWF investments in strategic industries show an higher drop in stock price than SWF investments in non-strategic industries. We also find that the higher is the politicization of the fund, and the higher is the stock price drop. Our results are robust to controls for the presence of bilateral political relations between the SWFs’ and target country, fund type (SWFs vs. Sovereign Pension Reserve Funds), fund opacity, equity stake of the investment, the use of an investment vehicle, the target country’s market capitalization/GDP ratio, and time effects.
Research Interests: Finance, Mergers & Acquisitions, Sovereignty, Strategic Studies, Foreign Direct Investment, and 27 morePolitical Institutions, Mergers and Acquisitions, Financial Markets And Institution, Institutions (Political Science), Mergers and acquisitions (Business), Stock Market, Investment analysis and valuation, Investment Portfolio Management, Investments, Sovereign Wealth Funds, Stock Markets, Institutional Investors, Institutions, Stock Return, Investment, Financial Institutions, Foreign Direct Investment ( FDI ), Investor Behaviour, Stocks, Investment funds, Stock, State sovereignty, CORPORATE FINANCE (Mergers and Acquisitions), Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions, Stock Price, Investors, and Acquisitions
We investigate the effect of public (PUVC) and private (PRVC) venture capital funds on the sales growth of 6,513 European New Technology-Based Firms (NTBFs) during the period from 1992 to 2009. Our results show that PUVC-backed NTBFs... more
We investigate the effect of public (PUVC) and private (PRVC) venture capital funds on the sales growth of 6,513 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-VC-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 co-finance with PRVC funds, and both target young firms.
In this paper, we estimate the effect of receiving financial aid for a cohort of students who enrolled at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in the year 2007/08, through a Propensity Score Matching approach. Using administrative data about... more
In this paper, we estimate the effect of receiving financial aid for a cohort of students who enrolled at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in the year 2007/08, through a Propensity Score Matching approach. Using administrative data about these students for four years, we were able to evaluate the impact of the financial aid on several dimensions of academic performance: formative credits obtained after one year, dropout probability in the first and second year, graduation in the legal duration of the course, and graduation after four years. Overall, we find a positive and statistically significant effect of the grant and this finding is stable across several robustness checks. Exploring the heterogeneity of this effect, we demonstrate that the effect is higher for immigrants, Italians who moved from another region for studying, and students attending an Engineering course. We also find evidence that unobservable factors (such as students’ own intrinsic academic motivation) account for an important part of the estimated impact of the financial aid.
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Using a new European Union-sponsored firm-level longitudinal dataset, we assess the impact of government-managed (GVC) and independent venture capital (IVC) funds on the sales and employee growth of European high-tech entrepreneurial... more
Using a new European Union-sponsored firm-level longitudinal dataset, we assess the impact of government-managed (GVC) and independent venture capital (IVC) funds on the sales and employee growth of European high-tech entrepreneurial firms. Our results show that the main statistically robust and economically relevant positive effect is exerted by IVC investors on firm sales growth. Conversely, the impact of GVC alone appears to be negligible. We also find a positive and statistically significant impact of syndicated investments by both types of investors on firm sales growth, but only when led by IVC investors. Our results remain stable after controlling for endogeneity, survivorship bias, reverse causality, anticipation effects, legal and institutional differences across countries and over time and are stable with respect to potential non-linear patterns in the growth dynamics of entrepreneurial firms. Overall, our analysis casts doubt on the ability of governments to support high-tech entrepreneurial firms through a direct and active involvement in VC markets.
Research Interests:
We investigate the effect of public (PUVC) and private (PRVC) venture capital funds on the sales growth of 6,513 European New Technology-Based Firms (NTBFs) during the period from 1992 to 2009. Our results show that PUVC-backed NTBFs... more
We investigate the effect of public (PUVC) and private (PRVC) venture capital funds on the sales growth of 6,513 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-VC-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 co-finance with PRVC funds, and both target young firms.
Using a new European Commission-sponsored longitudinal dataset – the VICO dataset – we assess the impact of independent (IVC) and corporate venture capital (CVC) investments on the economic performance of European high-tech... more
Using a new European Commission-sponsored longitudinal dataset – the VICO dataset – we assess the impact of independent (IVC) and corporate venture capital (CVC) investments on the economic performance of European high-tech entrepreneurial firms during the period 1992-2010. After controlling for potential sources of endogeneity and selection bias, our results indicate that both IVC and CVC investments boost portfolio firms' economic performance. These effects are mostly due to an increase in sales value. Moreover, the dynamics of the impact of VC investments on firms’ overall economic performance and its components – sales value, fixed assets, and payroll expenses – differs depending on the type of investor. Finally, we do not detect any impact of investments syndicated by both IVC and CVC investors.
Research Interests:
In recent years, a “third mission” pursued by universities, i.e. knowledge transfer to industry and society, has become more important as a determinant of enhancements in economic growth and social welfare. In the vast world of technology... more
In recent years, a “third mission” pursued by universities, i.e. knowledge transfer to industry and society, has become more important as a determinant of enhancements in economic growth and social welfare. In the vast world of technology transfer practices implemented by universities, the establishment and management of university venture capital and private equity funds (UFs) is largely unknown and under-researched. The focus of this work is to provide a detailed description of this phenomenon from 1973 to 2010, in terms of which universities set-up UFs, their target industries and the investment stages of portfolio companies, which types of co-investors are involved in the deals, and which are the determinants of UFs’ ultimate performances. The picture offers us the opportunity to draw some implications about the relevance of UFs in different contexts (i.e. Europe and the United States) and provide to interested stakeholders with some useful guidelines for future development.
In this work, we study the strategies driving cross-border sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investments worldwide. In particular, we investigate how SWFs internationalize their activities, studying whether the use of vehicles – in the form of... more
In this work, we study the strategies driving cross-border sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investments worldwide. In particular, we investigate how SWFs internationalize their activities, studying whether the use of vehicles – in the form of financial, corporate, or SWF majority-owned firms – to access foreign markets is influenced by fund opacity and the presence of political ties between the SWF’s and the target country. We use a new dataset on SWF investments, whose size is comparable with the datasets used in the most popular SWF studies. Our Heckman-type probit and multinomial logit estimates show that: i) fund opacity leads to a greater likelihood to use a vehicle, while ii) the presence of political ties negatively affects the use of corporate vehicles only. Moreover, conditional to the use of a vehicle, the presence of political ties increases the likelihood that SWFs invest through vehicles not located in the target country. Our results control for SWFs’ strategic goals, fund politicization, SWF activism, SWF experience (reliance on external managers or advisors, fund age, fund size), type of funding sources, crisis period, deal-specific effects, legal and institutional differences across countries and over time, and whether target companies operate in strategic industries.
In this study, we have carried out an empirical investigation on the potential differences in school performance between pupils attending public schools and those attending private schools in the most densely populated region of Italy... more
In this study, we have carried out an empirical investigation on the potential differences in school performance between pupils attending public schools and those attending private schools in the most densely populated region of Italy (Lombardy), employing a new dataset of about 77,000 students in the final or fifth year (grade 5) of around 1,000 schools. This is the first study to be carried out on the effects of private schooling in primary education in Italy. Our analysis uses an Instrumental Variables (IV) methodology to test the effectiveness of the voucher plan implemented by the regional government - the Region. The results show that, on average, there is no statistically significant “private school effect”. However, when exploring the potential heterogeneity of such effect, we did find that attending a private school is associated with higher performance in standardized test scores for two categories of pupils: immigrants and those from a relatively disadvantaged socio-economic background. From a policy perspective, we believe that private schools at primary level can serve disadvantaged pupils better and so help to improve equal opportunities throughout the entire educational system. These results challenge previous evidence about the role of private schooling in the Italian educational system.
I study the relationship between debt maturity and agency conflicts between controlling and minority shareholders in unlisted firms. Exploiting cross-province variance in the development of local credit markets, I find that the monitoring... more
I study the relationship between debt maturity and agency conflicts between controlling and minority shareholders in unlisted firms. Exploiting cross-province variance in the development of local credit markets, I find that the monitoring effect of short-term bank debt is more effective in firms with less concentrated ownership structures.
This paper examines the impact of government versus private independent venture capital (VC) backing on the exit performance of entrepreneurial firms. Our analyses are based on the VICO dataset, which avoids the coding problems of VC type... more
This paper examines the impact of government versus private independent venture capital (VC) backing on the exit performance of entrepreneurial firms. Our analyses are based on the VICO dataset, which avoids the coding problems of VC type in the Thompson Financial SDC dataset. The data indicate that private independent VC-backed companies have better exit performance than government-backed companies. Mixed-syndicates of private-independent and governmental VC investors give rise to a higher (but not statistically different) likelihood of positive exits than that of IVC-backing. Our findings are not influenced by the composition of the syndicate in terms of size and institutional heterogeneity. Our results remain stable after controlling for endogeneity concerns, selection bias, omitted variables bias, legal and institutional differences across countries and over time through several econometric techniques. Moreover, our results are not driven by: i) the holding period of the different types of VC investors; ii) the potential signaling effect of GVC towards IVC investors; iii) the firm's financial structure and net cash-flow ratio; iv) the investment stage; v) the distance between the VC investor and the target company.
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We aim to ascertain to what extent the better performance of European venture capital (VC)- backed firms in high-tech industries is due to either ‘screening’ or ‘value added’ provided by VC investors. We compare portfolio firms’... more
We aim to ascertain to what extent the better performance of European venture capital (VC)- backed firms in high-tech industries is due to either ‘screening’ or ‘value added’ provided by VC investors. We compare portfolio firms’ productivity growth before and after the first VC round, using a matched control group as benchmark. We show that productivity growth is not significantly different between VC and non-VC-backed firms before the first round of VC financing, whereas significant differences are found in the first years after the investment event. We also find that the value-adding services provided by VC investors 'imprint' the portfolio firm.
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We investigate if and to what extent the receipt of a “selective” public subsidy – a public subsidy awarded through a competitive procedure - acts as a quality signal and helps new technology-based firms (NTBFs) to access R&D alliances.... more
We investigate if and to what extent the receipt of a “selective” public subsidy – a public subsidy awarded through a competitive procedure - acts as a quality signal and helps new technology-based firms (NTBFs) to access R&D alliances. In particular, we theoretically enquire and empirically analyze which founding team-level characteristics allow NTBFs to: i) get a selective public subsidy; and ii) access an R&D alliance with another firm or a public research organization (e.g. an university), once the subsidy is awarded. We estimate an Heckman-type probit model on a sample of 977 NTBFs. First, our results show that the receipt of a selective public subsidy increases the likelihood to access an R&D alliance. Second, founders’ technical education figures as a key determinant to get the first selective subsidy. Finally, founders’ previous industry-specific work experience allows an NTBF to “exploit the signal” of the selective subsidy, by positively moderating the impact of the subsidy on an NTBF’s likelihood to establish an R&D alliance. This moderating effect is economically relevant and statistically significant only when the alliance is established with a corporate partner.
Using a new European Commission-sponsored longitudinal dataset – the VICO dataset – we assess the impact of independent (IVC) and corporate venture capital (CVC) investments on the economic performance of European high-tech... more
Using a new European Commission-sponsored longitudinal dataset – the VICO dataset – we assess the impact of independent (IVC) and corporate venture capital (CVC) investments on the economic performance of European high-tech entrepreneurial firms during the period 1992-2010. After controlling for potential sources of endogeneity and selection bias, our results indicate that both IVC and CVC investments boost portfolio firms' economic performance. These effects are mostly due to an increase in real sales value. Moreover, the dynamics of the impact of VC investments on firms’ overall economic performance and its components – real sales value, real fixed assets, and real labor costs – differs depending on the type of investor. Finally, we do not detect any impact related to the syndication of investments by both IVC and CVC investors.
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In this study, we have carried out an empirical investigation on the potential differences in school performance between pupils attending public schools and those attending private schools in the most densely populated region of Italy... more
In this study, we have carried out an empirical investigation on the potential differences in school performance between pupils attending public schools and those attending private schools in the most densely populated region of Italy (Lombardy), employing a new dataset of about 77,000 students in the final or fifth year (grade 5) of around 1,000 schools. This is the first study to be carried out on the effects of private schooling in primary education in Italy. Our analysis uses an Instrumental Variables (IV) methodology to test the effectiveness of the voucher plan implemented by the regional government - the Region. The results show that, on average, there is no statistically significant “private school effect”. However, when exploring the potential heterogeneity of such effect, we did find that attending a private school is associated with higher performance in standardized test scores for two categories of pupils: immigrants and those from a relatively disadvantaged socio-economic background. From a policy perspective, we believe that private schools at primary level can serve disadvantaged pupils better and so help to improve equal opportunities throughout the entire educational system. These results challenge previous evidence about the role of private schooling in the Italian educational system.