Electoral Balancing in Federal and Sub-national Elections: The Case of Canada

The major premise of this study is that in federal countries voters can balance and moderate national policy by dividing electoral support between different parties in federal and sub-national elections. We compare the non-concurrent federal and provincial elections in Canada to assess the balancing properties of sub-national elections. The balancing hypothesis implies that the federal incumbent party may suffer additional electoral losses in provincial elections. We use several statistical tests - ordinary OLS, fixed effect and unbalanced random effect cross-section time series - to analyze Canadian electoral data for the period of 1949-1997. All tests sustain that the incumbent party at the federal level loses votes in provincial elections.     

Discriminating “Schumpeterian” from “Austrian” informal investors—an empirical assessment

This study proposes a theoretically informed typology of international informal investors. This means that the Schumpeterian type is contrasted with Austrian informal investors. The governing paradigm in the neoclassical framework is economic equilibrium. However, the creation of disequilibrium is central to Schumpeterian entrepreneurship. This is unlike Austrian entrepreneurship, which regards movement toward economic equilibrium. Hence, Schumpeterian-type investors are perceived to facilitate disequilibrating change, whereas Austrian-type investors promote equilibrating change. Employing a two-group discriminant analysis with robust data from Norway, the findings support the concept that Schumpeterian and Austrian-type investors differ with regard to their selection of investment proposals, monitoring, and, not least, their backgrounds. The data suggest that Schumpeterian-type investors invest more actively, into the “early stage” category of new firms than Austrian-type investors. Schumpeterian-type investors are more highly educated than their counterparts and monitor their firms more actively by financial reports and stockholder meetings. By contrast, Austrian-type investors appear to have more experience than their Schumpeterian counterparts. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Born Global Firms and Informal Investors: Examining Investor Characteristics

A “Born Global” is a new venture with a global niche market focus from day one. Many of these firms experience high growth rates, but also, a considerable need for funding. This study contrasts informal investors involved in born global firms (“Born Global Investors”) with other informal investors. The underlying thesis is that the behavior of these investors reflects their investment philosophy, at least on a differential basis. The results suggest that born global investors differ from other informal investors in terms of deal origin, investment size, and exit preferences. Their experience as managers of large firms seems to be a particularly important factor, increasing investment capacity (income and fortune), while personal and professional networks influence the access to information about investment opportunities. The importance of these results for the development of born global firms is discussed.