Do farmer,household and farm characteristics influence the adoption of sustainable practices? The evidence from the Republic of Moldova

Drought represents the main constraint on agricultural production in the Republic of Moldova indicating the need to shift from conventional agricultural practices to more sustainable ones. To provide a more comprehensive understanding of the determinants and barriers influencing the adoption of conservation agriculture practices, an analytic framework combining both binary and ordered probit models addressing the potential endogeneity of variables was applied. A survey was conducted among 234 smallholders in three districts in the Republic of Moldova from July to September 2016. The results indicated that the adoption of sustainable practices by small-scale farmers is influenced predominantly by farmer characteristics and by their perception of risk. The findings of this research confirmed that households with lower access to financial resources are less likely to adopt these practices. Consequently, the provision of alternative financing is needed in the promotion of sustainable agriculture practices.     

WHAT DO ECONOMISTS TELL US ABOUT VENTURE CAPITAL CONTRACTS?

Abstract.  Venture capital markets are characterized by multiple incentive problems and asymmetric information. Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists enter into contracts that influence their behaviour and mitigate the agency costs. In particular, they select an appropriate kind and structure of financing and specify the rights as well as the duties of both parties. The typical features of venture capital investments are an intensive screening and evaluation process, active involvement of venture capitalists in their portfolio companies, staging of capital infusions, use of special financing instruments such as convertible debt or convertible preferred stock, syndication among venture capitalists or limited investment horizon.     

Do venture capitalists give founders their walking papers?

We investigate the impact of venture capitalists on the turnover of executives within a sample of nearly 46,500 German high-tech start-up companies founded between 1995 and 2004. We confirm that the presence of VCs increases the chances that the company will change the structure of its initial executive team. For the purposes of our analysis, we distinguish between different types of changes (somebody is replaced, the team is enlarged, the team shrinks). Additionally, we take a closer look at the subsample of venture-backed companies. We find that a small distance between the VCs and the companies they finance, as well as a larger total stake in the company owned by the VCs, goes hand-in-hand with an increased probability of changes in the initial executive teams.     

What lures cross-border venture capital inflows?

We investigate if economic factors drive gross and net cross-border venture capital inflows differently. Using a dataset of venture capital investments in European and North American countries from 2000 to 2008, we find that higher expected economic growth goes hand in hand with higher gross as well as net inflows, while higher market capitalization and a more favorable environment for venture capital intermediation entail higher gross inflows, but lower net inflows. The latter two findings may suggest that cross-border venture capital inflows partly compensate for potential limits in domestic venture capital supply. However, the findings may also reflect that venture capitalists’ locational decisions depend on the viability of capital markets.     

Do private equity owners increase risk of financial distress and bankruptcy?

In this study, we investigate financial distress risks of European companies around the buyout event in the period between 2000 and 2008. In addition, we analyze whether buyout companies go bankrupt more often than comparable non-buyout companies. Our results suggest that private equity investors select companies which are less financially distressed than comparable non-buyout companies and that the distress risk increases after the buyout. Despite this increase, private equity-backed companies do not suffer from higher bankruptcy rates than comparable non-buyout companies. In fact, when companies are backed by experienced private equity funds, their bankruptcy rates are even lower. These findings indicate that experienced investors are better able to manage distress risks than their inexperienced counterparts.