Bank competition and financing efficiency under asymmetric information

We consider a setting in which an entrepreneur seeks bank financing, and the project type is her private information. Different from existing theories featuring information asymmetry, and consistent with empirical findings, our model predicts: greater bank competition leads to increased bank lending as interest rates fall, leading to lower quality loans. The relationship between market power and financing efficiency is hill-shaped. An intermediate level of market power is desirable, as it can mitigate inefficiencies arising due to cross-subsidization among borrowers in a pooling equilibrium. Interest rate controls may achieve efficiency, but the specific policy depends on the bank market structure.     

A test for the fainthearted

Just a few years ago, becoming an entrepreneur was pretty simple. All you needed was some idea--any idea--a little experience, and venture capital funds to get you going. Many young people started to believe that entrepreneurship was a viable, even safe, career choice. Older folks, too, underestimated the risks of financing start-ups, and, as a result, they ended up throwing millions of dollars into doomed ventures. The economic downturn has laid waste to those illusions. So now is a good time to ask potential entrepreneurs and their financial backers the hard questions unheeded in the days of the Internet boom: What makes an entrepreneur? What characteristics set successful entrepreneurs apart, enabling them to keep their company alive even when the going gets tough? This article addresses those questions, reminding us that becoming a successful entrepreneur is decidedly not a squeaky-clean affair; you may end up making powerful enemies, risking your own financial security, or even, in extreme cases, looking at jail time. Specifically, the article explores the key qualities that make someone a successful entrepreneur. Walter Kuemmerle has distilled these characteristics into a kind of litmus test of the following five straightforward, albeit disquieting, questions you should ask yourself if you are considering starting your own venture: Are you comfortable stretching the rules? Are you prepared to make powerful enemies? Do you have the patience to start small? Are you willing to shift strategies quickly? Are you a closer? Answering these questions honestly will help you decide if you have what it takes to become an entrepreneur.     

Entrepreneur’s incentives for risk-taking and short-term debt

We investigate the effects of short-term debt for entrepreneur’s incentives for risk-taking. To do so, we develop a model by introducing short-term debt and financing frictions into the entrepreneur framework. The more risk-averse entrepreneur overestimates the liquidity risk and undervalues the private equity, leading to higher incentives for risk-taking. Short-term debt mitigates the risk-shifting problem induced by the entrepreneur’s preference while generating additional risk-taking incentives via rollover risk. We consequently challenge the view of Seta et al. (2020) by predicting a trade-off between the two effects of short-term debt for entrepreneurs, offering a new perspective to harmonize the existing arguments.     

Valuation and Control in Venture Finance

This paper presents the model of a relationship between a venture capitalist and an entrepreneur engaged in the formation of a new firm. I assume that the entrepreneur derives private nonpecuniary benefits from having some control over the firm. I show that to separate the entrepreneur's value of control from the firm's expected payoff, the venture capitalist demands disproportionately highercontrol rights than the size of his equity investment. The entrepreneur is compensated for a greater loss of control through better terms of financing, ability to extract higher rents from asymmetric information, and improved risk sharing.     

Social Capital and Access to Bank Financing: The Case of Chinese Entrepreneurs

This paper presents the results of a study of the effects of social capital on access to bank financing. Based on a Chinese nationwide survey, our analysis suggests that entrepreneurs who contribute to charities are more likely to be successful in loan applications. In addition, we find that political party membership is an important determinant of state-owned bank financing, whereas time spent on social activities increases the probability of obtaining loans from commercial banks. Therefore, our data provide some evidence for substitutability between various types of social capital. To obtain a loan from a specific type of bank, an entrepreneur should access the relevant social network.     

Strategic decertification in venture capital

An early-round investment delivers information about the quality of a project before more funds are needed. To obtain the best early-round financing offer, the entrepreneur should then approach a venture capitalist with highest screening ability. Going for the most accurate venture capitalist can however backfire in a follow-on round of financing. He could extract advantageous terms by threatening not to reinvest: the more accurate the incumbent, the more the signal sent by his non-participation to alternative financiers would be negative. Then, the most attractive early-round venture capitalist has only intermediate screening ability. The threat of strategic decertification enhances credit rationing.     

Optimal Contracting,Corporate Finance,and Valuation with Inalienable Human Capital

A risk‐averse entrepreneur with access to a profitable venture needs to raise funds from investors. She cannot indefinitely commit her human capital to the venture, which limits the firm's debt capacity, distorts investment and compensation, and constrains the entrepreneur's risk sharing. This puts dynamic liquidity and state‐contingent risk allocation at the center of corporate financial management. The firm balances mean‐variance investment efficiency and the preservation of financial slack. We show that in general the entrepreneur's net worth is overexposed to idiosyncratic risk and underexposed to systematic risk. These distortions are greater the closer the firm is to exhausting its debt capacity.     

Who Finances Durable Goods and Why It Matters: Captive Finance and the Coase Conjecture

We propose that, by financing their own product sales through captive finance subsidiaries, durable goods manufacturers commit to higher resale values for their products in future periods. Using data on captive financing by the manufacturers of heavy equipment, we find that captive‐backed models have lower price depreciation. The evidence is consistent with captive finance helping manufacturers commit to ex‐post actions that support used machine prices. This, in turn, conveys higher pledgeability for captive‐backed products, even for individual machines financed by banks. Although motivated as a rent‐seeking device, captive financing generates positive spillovers by relaxing credit constraints.     

Performance persistence in entrepreneurship

This paper presents evidence of performance persistence in entrepreneurship. We show that entrepreneurs with a track record of success are much more likely to succeed than first-time entrepreneurs and those who have previously failed. In particular, they exhibit persistence in selecting the right industry and time to start new ventures. Entrepreneurs with demonstrated market timing skill are also more likely to outperform industry peers in their subsequent ventures. This is consistent with the view that if suppliers and customers perceive the entrepreneur to have market timing skill, and is therefore more likely to succeed, they will be more willing to commit resources to the firm. In this way, success breeds success and strengthens performance persistence.     

社会资本与集群中小企业融资便利——基于湖南汨罗再生资源行业数据的实证研究

以湖南汨罗再生资源行业企业集群的近200家企业为调查对象,考量集群企业社会资本的影响因子,结果表明,集群中小企业社会资本主要受企业家个人基本情况、企业的信用情况、企业的存续年数以及集群中小企业的合作程度等四个因子的影响。社会资本与集群中小企业融资的关系实证表明,社会资本对中小企业融资便利具有促进作用。     

Upfront versus staged financing: the role of verifiability

We compare upfront and staged financing to see when and how one financing policy prevails over the other. In our model, there are two moral hazard problems that interact with each other. First, the entrepreneur may pursue his own private benefit out of the raised fund in the initial period. Second, the entrepreneur may shirk on project evaluation at the refinancing stage if the project is stage-financed. When the entrepreneur's effort for project evaluation is verifiable, the project may be stage-financed even if the cost of evaluating effort exceeds the value of information (over-evaluation). When such effort is unverifiable, the project may be financed upfront even if the value of information exceeds the cost of evaluating effort (under-evaluation).     

Financing and Advising: Optimal Financial Contracts with Venture Capitalists

This paper analyses the joint provision of effort by an entrepreneur and by an advisor to improve the productivity of an investment project. Without moral hazard, it is optimal that both exert effort. With moral hazard, if the entrepreneur's effort is more efficient (less costly) than the advisor's effort, the latter is not hired if she does not provide funds. Outside financing arises endogenously. This explains why investors like venture capitalists are value enhancing. The level of outside financing determines whether common stocks or convertible bonds should be issued in response to incentives.     

Company duplication – plain fraud or a ‘poor man's’ bankruptcy? A case study in the financial distress of small businesses

Two possible solutions to corporate financial distress are traditionally considered: commencing a formal bankruptcy proceeding or arranging an out‐of‐court capital restructuring. Corporate bankruptcy scholarship has largely ignored a third solution occasionally undertaken by small businesses, that is, resorting to self‐help measures. The purpose of this paper is to start filling the gap using a unique case study. The paper describes and analyses an existing phenomenon among small firms in Israel experiencing financial distress – company duplication. A typical scenario unfolds as follows. An entrepreneur who controls the financially distressed Company A registers a new Company B in an attempt to avoid a complete shutdown of her creditors' disturbed business. The assets of Company A are transferred to Company B in what appears to be fraudulent conveyance. Company B serves as a vehicle through which the original business is kept running. If necessary, the entrepreneur will also register Company C and repeat the process. Israeli law regulates company duplication in an ambivalent manner. On the one hand, conventional wisdom considers company duplication to be tantamount to fraud against Company A's unaware creditors. Accordingly, company duplication has been recently denounced by the Israeli Supreme Court as an illegitimate way of conducting business. The Court held that notwithstanding the principle of limited liability, an entrepreneur resorting to company duplication is personally liable to pay any debt of Company A that was not serviced by it. On the other hand, company duplicators do not face criminal charges. To the extent that company duplication is practiced by insolvent entrepreneurs, deterrence is therefore suboptimal, as insolvent duplicators are not sanctioned at all. Against this backdrop, this paper advances two normative arguments. First, a more sympathetic explanation should be considered to account for company duplication. An entrepreneur resorting to company duplication might actually be arranging for a ‘home‐made’ bankruptcy proceeding (i.e. buying time which could help the business establish its viability and regenerate). According to this narrative, the duplication mimics the role of a formal bankruptcy stay on unsecured creditors' collection efforts, thus suggesting that company duplication serves as ‘a poor man's’ bankruptcy proceeding. Second, this new explanation of company duplication, combined with the current level of suboptimal deterrence, mandates a re‐evaluation of this business pattern to assess its relative efficacy. I argue that at least in the Israeli context because of its special features, company duplication should be tolerated with regard to small businesses, assuming that the entrepreneur is not defrauding creditors or attempting to rescue a business that has failed due to economic rather than merely financial factors. To that end, company duplicators should be held personally liable to debts of the duplicated companies and be pursued with criminal sanctions only selectively, as explained in the paper. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determinants of start-up firm external financing worldwide

The typical new start-up firm acquires external financing in stages through its development. Researchers have frequently examined the later stages of financing; however, they have rarely analyzed the early stages of financing. This study examines the determinants of the initial start-up financing of entrepreneurial firms in 27 countries. There are information asymmetries and moral hazard problems inherent in the funding of an initial start-up firm. Empirical results show that institutional investors rely on the experience of entrepreneurs in managing start-ups and the quality of investor protection to reduce moral hazard. On the other hand, informal investors are also common in initial start-up funding. They tend to be attracted to the type of products in the new firm. In comparison, informal investors are likely to have a social relationship with the entrepreneur, and thus have information about that person’s skill and character, which renders entrepreneurial experience less important.     

Repeated lending under contractual incompleteness

We consider a model of repeated (relationship) lending in which some contingencies that are relevant for a bank’s decision to finance a project cannot be described contractually. The hazards related to this lack of contractibility can be magnified by actions taken by an entrepreneur. The continuation value of a lending relationship induces borrowers to take actions that minimize the ex-post conflict of interests resulting from contractual incompleteness. The optimal lending relationship is stationary on the equilibrium path. A robust feature of an optimal lending relationship is that the action schedule (as a function of project types) adopted by the entrepreneur is either a constant or a step function. Hence, the bank imposes to the entrepreneur a finite set of decisions from which he can pick his action, bounding his discretion over decisions. This leads to lower interest rates charged by the bank and to efficient refinancing in a lending relationship when compared to arm’s length financing.     

Staging of Venture Financing, Investor Opportunism and Patent Law

Abstract:  Stage financing provides a real option that is valuable when facing external uncertainty. However, it may also induce investor hold-up, if the property rights on an invention are not sufficiently protected. As a consequence, the entrepreneur may not work hard. Investor opportunism is less likely to occur, if investors' residual cash-flow-rights are contingent on verifiable 'milestones' in the previous stage. Equity-linked financing also provides high-powered incentives to the investor not to 'steal the idea' because his payoff becomes sensitive to the project value. The paper provides a new explanation for both types of contractual provisions.     

福建省大学生创业政策分析及优化探析

大学生创业政策是大学生创业的重要推动力量.文章从大学生创业政策的功能性和效用角度出发,综合分析福建省大学生创业教育培训政策、创业促进政策、创业融资政策和创业环境政策的优势与不足,提出应调校政策指向,强化创业教育,加大促进力度,创新融资渠道,营造创业气氛等政策建议.     

The non-neutrality of debt in investment timing: a new NPV rule

Summary Limited liability debt financing of irreversible investments can affect investment timing through an entrepreneur’s option value, even after compensating a lender for expected default losses. This non-neutrality of debt arises from an entrepreneur’s unique investment opportunity, and it is shown in a standard model of irreversible investment that includes the equilibrium effect of a competitive lending sector. The analysis is partial, in that it takes as exogenously given an entrepreneur’s use of debt. Intuitively, limited liability lowers downside risk for the entrepreneur by truncating the lower tail of risks, and lowers the investment threshold. Compensating the lender for expected default losses reduces project profitability to the entrepreneur, and increases the investment threshold. The net effect is negative, because lower downside risk has an additional impact on the option value of delaying investment. The standard NPV rule in real options theory implicitly assumes debt to be neutral. With non-neutrality of debt, an investment threshold is higher than investment cost, but lower than the standard NPV rule. Comparisons with other standard investment thresholds show similar relationships.     

Banks versus Venture Capital: Project Evaluation, Screening, and Expropriation

Why do some start‐up firms raise funds from banks and others from venture capitalists? To address this question, I study a model in which the venture capitalist can evaluate the entrepreneur's project more accurately than the bank but can also threaten to steal it from the entrepreneur. Consistent with evidence regarding venture capital finance, the model implies that the characteristics of a firm financing through venture capitalists are relatively little collateral, high growth, high risk, and high profitability. The model also suggests that tighter protection of intellectual property rights encourages entrepreneurs to finance through venture capitalists.     

Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection: The Question of Financial Structure

This paper looks at the moral hazard and adverse selection problems confronting an entrepreneur offering securities to an uninformed, but competitive financial market. The adverse selection aspect of the problem is generated by the unobservable entrepreneur's ability to transform effort into value. Moral hazard arises because the investment decision is made subsequent to financing. We consider the joint use of both debt and equity, and characterize the equilibrium relation between capital structure and unobservable attributes. It is shown that: (1) investment and financing are not separable; (2) there is an underinvestment problem for “better” firms; and (3) simultaneous use of both debt and equity can resolve this difficulty. We also establish a connection between expected terminal firm value and debt-promised payment level and between share retention and standard deviation.