Closing the Savings Gap? The Role of the Saving Gateway

The 2001 election manifesto committed Labour to introducing two innovative policies designed to increase savings and assets among future generations, and the low-income families of today. The Child Trust Fund aims to provide all children with an endowment of assets when they reach the age of 18. Child Trust Fund accounts became available in April 2005 to all children born from 1 September 2002. The Saving Gateway offers a new savings account for lower-income families, designed to encourage savings. The first Saving Gateway pilot took place between 2002 and 2004; a second, larger pilot is currently underway. This article outlines the key findings from the evaluation of the first Saving Gateway pilot.1 Overall, the results are positive—the scheme has encouraged participants to save, and to save regularly. In addition, it seems to have resulted in positive psychological and attitudinal changes among a significant proportion of participants.     

A structural model of US aggregate job flows

This paper contributes to the analysis of jobs flows dynamics through the explicit modelling of job creations and job destructions. We propose a simple matching model extended for endogenous separation and tractable heterogeneity. The parameters of the model are estimated using a simulation‐based estimation method. We then test the ability of trade externalities, generated by the matching process, to (i) propagate reallocation and aggregate disturbances in the whole labor market and (ii) generate the observed distribution of aggregate job flows. The results clearly indicate that the model is able to match the dynamics of US aggregate job flows. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determinants of individual investment decisions in investment‐based crowdfunding

We investigate determinants of investment decisions in investment‐based (equity and bond) crowdfunding campaigns, using a novel investment‐, investor‐ and campaign‐level database, where equity refers to investments in entrepreneurial start‐ups and bonds to large real estate projects. We find that investors who have higher social interactions invest more. Social interactions are important in an equity crowdfunding context but do not affect participation in bond investments. This is consistent with the view that investors' social networks help reduce information asymmetry. Women invest less in the riskiest (equity) investments but more in safer ones (bonds). These findings are better explained by differences in risk aversion than differences in overconfidence between men and women. Overall, the findings contribute to the understanding of how investment‐based crowdfunding can be a viable source of entrepreneurial finance and how entrepreneurs' campaign decisions affect investor participation in this new form of entrepreneurial finance.     

Crowdfunding and social influence: an empirical investigation

The literature so far provides no in-depth investigation of the determinants of decisions to contribute to crowdfunding platforms. The present article draws on work measuring the decisions and prosocial behaviours of individuals in relation to public goods, and uses survey data on crowdfunding behaviour. We surveyed an original sample of individuals in France to explore individual decisions and amounts of funding chosen to support a creative project. We show that in non-equity crowdfunding contributing money is associated with altruism. Our findings suggest that the ‘warm glow’ effect influences the level of the contribution; we show also those monetary incentives could ‘crowd out’ the decisions to contribute of crowdfunders. Our study has some implications for business strategy since understanding why people contribute adds to our knowledge about the incentives that might encourage them to increase their contributions, and allows predictions about how changes to how crowdfunding platforms are managed might affect individual incentives to give.     

‘Give me a chance!’ An experiment in social decision under risk

This paper reports the results of a ‘probabilistic dictator game’ experiment in which subjects were given an option to share chances to win a prize with a dummy player. Using a within-subject design we manipulated two aspects of the decision, the relative cost of sharing and the nature of the lottery: the draws were either independent for the two players (‘noncompetitive’ condition) or one’s success meant other’s failure (‘competitive’ condition). We also asked for decisions in a standard, non-probabilistic, setting. The main results can be summarized as follows: first, a substantial fraction of subjects do share chances to win, also in the competitive treatments, thus showing concern for the other player that cannot be explained by outcome-based models. Second, subjects share less in the competitive treatment than in other treatments, indicating that procedural fairness alone cannot explain the data. Overall, these results suggest that models aiming at generalizing social concerns to risky environments will have to rely on a mix of distributive and procedural fairness.     

Are innovation and R&D the only sources of firms’ knowledge that increase productivity? An empirical investigation of French manufacturing firms

The economic literature presents knowledge accumulation as one of the most important characteristics of innovation. The accumulation of knowledge arises from complex and dynamic interactions between a firm??s own internal capacity and external expertise. Research and development (R&D) remains important in the innovation process, but it must be integrated with knowledge from other sources, such as training and knowledge capitalization. This paper investigates the relationship between such knowledge sources and the productivity of French firms. Using asymptotic least squares, a Cobb-Douglas function including R&D, innovation, training expenditure and ISO 9000 certification is estimated for 1,213 French manufacturing firms. Our results show that innovation, training and ISO 9000 certification have a positive and significant impact on firms?? productivity.     

Selecting Board Members: The Impact of Common Knowledge on Gender Diversity – An Experimental Investigation

Using a corporate governance experiment, we explore the role of common knowledge of diversity on board members' selection. Our results show that common knowledge of diversity impacts significantly and negatively the proportion of women selected on boards and in a higher proportion in sectors perceived as ‘masculine’. We also bring evidence of an order effect that makes the selection of men on boards likelier for the first chosen members. This bias is stronger for male decision makers. This article provides implications and directions for future research for the understanding of decision making involved in the selection process for board members. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluating the Impact of a Working Time Regulation on Capital Operating Time: The French 35‐hour Work Week Experience

In this article, we evaluate the impact of diminishing weekly working hours on capital operating time using the French 35‐hour working week experience. We merge the French survey on Capital Operating Time (COT, Banque de France, Central Bank of France; 1989–2004) and administrative Working Time Reduction agreements files (WTR, DARES, French Ministry of Labour; May 2003). We construct shift‐work‐based capital operating time indicators. Using differences‐in‐differences econometric models, we show that the implementation of the 35‐hour work week did not induce any reduction in COT. Hence, firms increased shift‐work to compensate for the decrease in working hours.     

Toward a Typology of University Spin-offs

This paper discusses existing definitions of USOs in order to reconcile them and to provide criteria for classifying and understanding the different facets of this multi-headed concept. Drawing the boundaries of this concept and elucidating its variety through a typology are therefore the two main objectives of this paper. USOs are defined as new firms created to exploit commercially some knowledge, technology or research results developed within a university. The proposed typology is based on two key discriminatory factors, namely (1) the status of individuals involved in the new business venturing process (researchers or students) and (2) the nature of knowledge transferred from university to the new venture (codified or tacit), inducing the nature of the USO activities (product or service-oriented).