Is success hereditary? Evidence on the performance of spawned ventures

A common phenomenon in entrepreneurship is that employees turn away from employment to found their own businesses. Prior literature discusses the former employers’ characteristics that influence the creation of entrepreneurial ventures. An investigation of whether these characteristics also affect the success of the spawned ventures is missing so far. This paper contributes to the literature by showing that entrepreneurial ventures spawned by well performing firms are financially more successful than ventures stemming from poorly performing firms. This suggests that spawned entrepreneurs are able to exploit valuable knowledge from their previous employers which impacts their ventures’ performance positively. The analysis is based on a linked employee–employer data set for the Netherlands for the period 1999–2004.     

Optimality of impulse harvesting policies

We explore the link between cyclical and smooth resource exploitation. We define an impulse control framework which can generate both cyclical solutions and steady-state solutions. Our model can admit convex and concave profit functions and allows the integration of different stock-dependent profit functions. We show that the strict concavity of the profit function is only a special case of a more general condition, related to submodularity, that ensures the existence of optimal cyclical policies. We then establish a link with the discrete-time models with cyclical solutions by Benhabib and Nishimura (J Econ Theory 35:284–306, 1985) and Dawid and Kopel (J Econ Theory 76:272–297, 1997). For the steady-state solution, we explore the relation to Clark’s (1976) continuous control model.     

Measuring New Product Portfolio Innovativeness: How Differences in Scale Width and Evaluator Perspectives Affect its Relationship with Performance

Portfolio innovativeness is a central variable in innovation management. However, the impact of portfolio innovativeness on new product development (NPD) performance is unclear, which may partly be due to the construct's multifaceted nature. Different facets may reflect different degrees of innovativeness and may have different relationships with performance. In addition, firm members with different functional backgrounds may perceive and thus assess these facets differently, which again may influence the performance effect of portfolio innovativeness. Based on a sample of 746 CEOs and marketing as well as technology professionals from 117 firms and using Item Response Theory (IRT), a multifaceted scale of portfolio innovativeness, whose facets are able to cover the entire innovativeness spectrum, is developed. In addition, it is shown that the performance impact of portfolio innovativeness is dependent on the facets included in the scale, and on the specialization of the professional assessing the facets. Inverted U‐shaped performance effects are found when the scale covers the entire spectrum of innovativeness, and linear positive or zero effects with different types of more narrowly modeled scales. Inverted U‐shaped performance effects are also found when technology professionals assess the facets, while the assessments by marketing professionals lead to linear positive effects.     

Mergers and acquisitions in the global food processing industry in 1986–2006

Food systems around the world experienced increased merger and acquisition (M&A) activity over the past decades. Based on a sample of 13,911M&A attempts worldwide during 1986–2006, this study provides an analysis of major determinants of M&A completion in the food processing industry. Friendly attitude, cash payment and experience with M&As emerge as strong deal facilitators. Bidding competition, pursuit of parallel transactions, target subsidiary status and acquirer public status are the most important deal breakers. Unlike the lenient antitrust approach of the Reagan administration, the 1998 UK Competition Act and various directives and regulations on food safety and quality associated with the completion of the internal European market in 1992 facilitated M&A completion. In contrast, the beginning of the Economic and Monetary Union, as marked by the introduction of the Euro in 1999, had a strong negative effect on completion likelihood. This study identifies substantial regional differences. Completion of M&As that involve Asian firms depends on distinct factors. Results for NAFTA are mostly in line with predictions derived from general economic theory, compared to other regions.     

Reserve risk estimation in a linear model

This paper presents the linear model, a framework for stochastic modeling of known methods as well as for the development of new methods of loss reserving. The linear model allows the determination of optimal predictors of non-observable cumulated and incremental losses and thus the derivation of optimal reserves by minimization of the expected squared prediction error.     

Capital liberalization and the US external imbalance

Differences in financial systems are often named as a prime candidate for the current state of global imbalances. This paper focuses on cross-country heterogeneity in access to international financial markets that derives from the presence of capital controls and argues that the process of capital liberalization over the past decades can explain a substantial fraction of US net external liabilities. We present a simple two-country model with an internationally traded bond, in which capital controls are reflected in the presence of borrowing and lending constraints on that bond. In a US versus the rest of the world (RoW) scenario, we perform experiments that are largely consistent with countries' liberalization experiences. A reduction in the RoW's controls on capital outflows and/or a tightening in the RoW's borrowing constraint enable the US economy to better insure against consumption risk relative to the rest of the world, and therefore decrease its motives for precautionary asset holdings relative to the rest of the world. As a result of these asymmetric shifts in countries' barriers to capital mobility, the US runs a long run external deficit.     

The amenity value of climate to households in Germany

Despite the importance of as comprehensive as possible damagecost estimates to cost benefit analyses of global attempts toreduce greenhouse gas emissions, few researchers have attemptedto monetize the direct impact of climate change on households.This study uses the hedonic technique to measure the amenityvalue of the climate to German households. Evidence suggeststhat the amenity value of climate variables is capitalized mainlyinto hedonic house price differentials. Overall, German householdsappear to prefer warmer winters with less rainfall. Combiningestimates of amenity values with the predicted changes in climateassociated with the IPCC's A2 emissions scenario we find thatthe overall impact of climate change on German households, whilstnegative, is typically not statistically different from zero.This occurs in part because the prediction is for warmer butwetter winters and also because the amenity value of some climatevariables cannot be measured with sufficient precision.     

Searching for the Fed’s reaction function

There is still some doubt about those economic variables that really matter for the Fed’s decisions. In comparison with other estimations, this study uses the approach of Bayesian model averaging (BMA). The estimations show that over the long-run inflation, unemployment rates and long-term interest rates are the crucial variables in explaining the Federal Funds Rate. In the other two estimation samples, also the fiscal deficit and monetary aggregates were of relevance. There is also evidence for interest rate smoothing. In addition, we account for parameter instability by combining BMA with time-varying coefficient (TVC) modelling. We find strong evidence for structural breaks. Finally, a model average is constructed via an TVC-BMA approach.