The start-up fund - an elegant treaty mechanism for sustaining defence capabilities. Security Policy Brief No. 48, June 2013

When the European Council meets in December, it will face a range of decisions which will lay the foundations for Europe's defence posture and role in the wider world for decades to come, perhaps even beyond the remainder of this century. The Lisbon Treaty has, for the first time, equipped the EU with the range of means to meet that role in practice. The question that remains to be answered is whether Europe's leaders have the political will to implement those means in full.

Financial services and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. CEPS Policy Brief No. 302, 20 November 2013

Given the size of the financial markets on both sides of the Atlantic and the symmetry in the follow-up of the G-20 standards, Karel Lannoo argues in this Policy Brief that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) provides a good opportunity to put in place a more institutionalised framework. He finds that both blocs have reacted in similar ways to the financial crisis in strengthening their regulatory and supervisory frameworks and incorporating the G-20 recommendations into federal law. He also notes that consumer protection has been reinforced, certainly in the US, with the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And on the EU side, the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) will radically change banking supervision. In his view, inclusion of financial services could also be an opportunity to strengthen prudential rules and consumer protection provisions on both sides. Rather than leading to a reduction of consumer protection, as had been feared in the post-crisis environment, it could lead to an examination, exchange and recognition of best practices in regulation and enforcement. Finally, he concludes that inclusion of financial services would make it part of the permanent regulatory dialogue that will be established as a result of a successful TTIP.

Simulation of Land Use and Investment Behaviour under Different Policy Scenarios: Results of the extended farm/household model. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 27, July 2012

Factor markets are a central issue in analyses of farm development and of agricultural sector vitality. Among the different production factors, land is one of the most studied. Several studies seek to estimate the effect of government policy payments on land value or land rental prices. The studies mostly agree that government payments and other types of policy support are significant in explaining land prices and account for a large share of them. In October 2011, the European Commission published a new policy proposal for the common agricultural policy (CAP) up to 2020. The proposed regulation includes a shift from historical to regional payments. The objective of this paper is to provide an ex ante analysis of the impact of the new CAP policy instruments on the land market. In particular, the effect of the regionalisation of payments in Italy is examined. The analysis is based on the use of a mathematical programming model to simulate the changes in land demand for a farm in Emilia Romagna. The results highlight the relevance of the new policy mechanism in determining a change in land demand. Yet the effect is highly dependent on initial ownership of entitlements under the historical payment scheme.

Serial reports on start-up experiments : no. 5. counting losses in BF₃ proportional counter systems.

"Work performed under Contract No. AT-30-2-Gen-16."

ANÁLISE DAS MUDANÇAS DOS FATORES DETERMINANTES DA ESTRUTURA DE CAPITAL EM FUNÇÃO DO CICLO DE VIDA DAS EMPRESAS BRASILEIRAS SÃO BERNARDO DO CAMPO

As várias teorias acerca da estrutura de capital despertam interesse motivando diversos estudos sobre o assunto sem, no entanto, ter um consenso. Outro tema aparentemente pouco explorado refere-se ao ciclo de vida das empresas e como ele pode influenciar a estrutura de capital. Este estudo teve como objetivo verificar quais determinantes possuem maior relevância no endividamento das empresas e se estes determinantes alteram-se dependendo do ciclo de vida da empresa apoiada pelas teorias Trade Off, Pecking Order e Teoria da Agência. Para alcançar o objetivo deste trabalho foi utilizado análise em painel de efeito fixo sendo a amostra composta por empresas brasileiras de capital aberto, com dados secundários disponíveis na Economática® no período de 2005 a 2013, utilizando-se os setores da BM&FBOVESPA. Como resultado principal destaca-se o mesmo comportamento entre a amostra geral, alto e baixo crescimento pelo endividamento contábil para o determinante Lucratividade apresentando uma relação negativa, e para os determinantes Oportunidade de Crescimento e Tamanho, estes com uma relação positiva. Para os grupos de alto e baixo crescimento alguns determinantes apresentaram resultados diferentes, como a singularidade que resultou significância nestes dois grupos, sendo positiva no baixo crescimento e negativa no alto crescimento, para o valor colateral dos ativos e benefício fiscal não dívida apresentaram significância apenas no grupo de baixo crescimento. Para o endividamento a valor de mercado foi observado significância para o Benefício fiscal não dívida e Singularidade. Este resultado reforça o argumento de que o ciclo de vida influência a estrutura de capital

Estimating additionality and leverage:between public and private sector equity finance in Ireland (2000 – 2002)

This paper aims to contribute to the debate about the role of the public sector in stimulating greater use of private sector equity for business start-up and growth in two ways. First, to examine the extent to which the provision of public sector equity finance enables individual firms to raise additional funds in the private sector market place. Second, to consider the methodological implications for an economic impact assessment of industrial policy interventions (especially those which include an equity component) at the level of the individual firm. We assess the extent to which there may be indirect positive effects (externalities) associated with public sector financial assistance to individual firms and if so how they distort standard evaluation methodologies designed to estimate the level of additionality of that support. The paper draws upon the results of a recent study of the impact of Enterprise Ireland (EI) financial assistance to indigenous Irish industry in the period 2000 to 2002. The paper demonstrates that a process of re-calibration is necessary in estimates of economic impact in order to account for these positive externalities and the result in this study was a ‘boost’ to additionality. In operational and conceptual terms, the study underlines the importance of the relationship between private and public sector sources of equity finance as an important dynamic in the attempt by industrial and regional policy to stimulate the number of firms with viable investment proposals accessing external equity finance.

Advances towards a pressurised rotating fluidised bed combustor

Rotating fluidised Beds offer the potential for high intensity combustion, large turndown and extended range of fluidising velocity due to the imposition of an artificial gravitational field. Low thermal capacity should also allow rapid response to load changes. This thesis describes investigations of the validity of these potential virtues. Experiments, at atmospheric pressure, were conducted in flow visualisation rigs and a combustor designed to accommodate a distributor 200mm diameter and 80mm axial length. Ancillary experiments were conducted in a 6" diameter conventional fluidised bed. The investigations encompassed assessment of; fluidisation and elutriation, coal feed requirements, start-up and steady-state combustion using premixed propane and air, transition from propane to coal combustion and mechanical design. Assessments were made of an elutriation model and some effects of particle size on the combustion of premixed fuel gas and air. The findings were: a) more reliable start-up and control methods must be developed. Combustion of premixed propane and air led to severe mechanical and operating problems. Manual control of coal combustion was inadequate. b) Design criteria must encompass pressure loss, mechanical strength and high temperature resistance. The flow characteristics of ancillaries and the distributor must be matcheo. c) Fluidisation of a range of particle sizes was investigated. New correlations for minimum fluidisation and fully supported velocities are proposed. Some effects on elutriation of particle size and the distance between the bed surface and exhaust port have been identified. A conic distributor did not aid initial bed distribution. Furthermore, airflow instability was encountered with this distributor shape. Future use of conic distributors is not recommended. Axial solids mixing was found to be poor. A coal feeder was developed which produced uniform fuel distribution throughout the bed. The report concludes that small scale inhibits development of mechanical design and exploration of performance. future research requires larger combustors and automatic control.

Start-up financing in the age of globalization

The authors investigate the determinants of start-up financing in fifty-four countries, using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) surveys for the years 2001-6. They find that financial liberalization increases the total financial size of the individual start-up entrepreneurial project both via the increased use of external and of own funds. In addition, the volume of start-up finance responds positively to international capital inflows, as represented by loans from nonresident banks and remittances, and negatively to the volume of offshore deposits. The positive impact of remittances on total volume of start-up financing is via financing by the entrepreneur.

Start-up financing:a comparative perspective

We investigate the determinants of start-up financing in 41 countries, using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor surveys for 1998-20032. High quality of property rights increases both the total volume of finance and the use of external finance for the individual start-up. The size of the formal financial sector affects the start-up finance via enhancing the volume of self-finance. In addition, the use of external finance by start-ups correlates with the extent of financial restrictions in a country in a non-linear way. Supply of informal finance may to some extent substitute for the use of formal finance.

Ownership structure and investment finance in transition economies:a survey of evidence from large firms in Hungary and Poland

Using survey data on 157 large private Hungarian and Polish companies this paper investigates links between ownership structures and CEOs’ expectations with regard to sources of finance for investment. The Bayesian estimation is used to deal with the small sample restrictions, while classical methods provide robustness checks. We found a hump-shaped relationship between ownership concentration and expectations of relying on public equity. The latter is most likely for firms where the largest investor owns between 25 percent and 49 percent of shares, just below the legal control threshold. More profitable firms rely on retained earnings for their investment finance, consistent with the ‘pecking order’ theory of financing. Finally, firms for which the largest shareholder is a domestic institutional investor are more likely to borrow from domestic banks.

The social and entrepreneurial orientation of small businesses:mutually exclusive or reinforcing? (INTERACTIVE PAPER)

Principal Topic - As argued by Acs and Phillips (2002) it is not only “the creation of wealth (entrepreneurship)” but also “the reconstitution of wealth (philanthropy)”, which has been essential for the inherent dynamism of the market economy (Ibid., p.201). However, we understand little about the entrepreneurship – philanthropy link in institutional contexts that differ from that of leading developed market economies. Accordingly our research agenda is to investigate the entrepreneurship-philanthropy nexus in a very different context of Lithuania, a country which shed a command economy system twenty years ago. In particular, we are interested to see if the cluster of attitudes and strategies of firms conducive to entrepreneurship, i.e. their entrepreneurial orientation (Covin & Slevin, 1989), is consistent or contradictory with philanthropy? In other words, is philanthropy strongly associated with some core components of entrepreneurship, or is it an entrepreneurial anomaly, relying on a minority of economic actors that provide important links with wider, non-economic communities. Method - The study draws on 270 randomly sampled, phone interviews with owners and ownermanagers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), i.e. firms with less than 250 employees. Interviews were conducted in Lithuania during January- March, 2008. Our results are based on confirmatory factor analysis combined with regression analysis. Results and Implications - Despite the legacy of informal institutions that is conducive neither to entrepreneurship nor to civic society, we found that by now, (i) the companies that score highest on entrepreneurial orientation construct, (ii) that perform best and those (iii) that have foreign owners are also most likely to declare their commitment to philanthropy. Our findings that most entrepreneurial firms are also involved in philanthropy are consistent with the perspective on the pattern of development in an entrepreneurial economy as outlined by Acs and Phillips (2002).

JA Entrepreneurship (Start-up) Academic Program Curriculum

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2013

Jeremie program, mint a magyar start-up ökoszisztéma életre hívója

A kockázati tőke kiemelt jelentősége széles körben elismert az innovatív, induló vállalkozások finanszírozásában. Nemzetközi szinten azonban a kockázati tőkebefektetések nagymértékben visszaestek a 2007-ben induló válság hatására. Ez a visszaesés a klasszikus, start-up vállalkozásokat finanszírozó kockázati tőkebefektetéseket erősebben érintette. Az állami hatóságok ezt felismerve, több ösztönző programot indítottak ezen befektetések elősegítésére. Az Európai Bizottság (EC) és az Európai Befektetési Bank (EIB) 2005. október indította el a Jeremie programot, a kis-és középvállalkozások innovációs tevékenységének ösztönzése céljából. A program számos finanszírozási lehetőséget nyújt, de a vissza nem térítendő támogatás nem tartozik a lehetséges eszközök közé. A térséget tekintve Magyarország rendelkezik a legtöbb kockázati tőkebefektetés kerettel. Magyarországon a Jeremie alapok megjelenését megelőzően kevés kockázati tőkebefektetés történt az innovatív, induló vállalkozásokba, a kis-és középvállalatok finanszírozását elsősorban a banki források, vissza nem térítendő támogatások, valamint az állami kockázati tőkealapok biztosították. A program I. szakaszának befektetési időszaka 2013. december 31-én zárul, így aktuálisnak tartjuk foglalkozni azzal, hogy milyen is az összetétele az alapok portfóliójának, milyen típusú cégeket tart most befektetésre alkalmasnak a kockázati tőkés piac. A Jeremie program hatásainak már valós jelei vannak elsősorban a start-up világban, hiszen az utóbbi néhány évben egy új jelenség van kialakulóban, az ún. „start-up ökoszisztéma”, mely hosszú távon mindenképpen fontos mozgatója lehet majd a gazdaságnak. Ezt az ökoszisztémát egyértelműen a Jeremie program hívta életre, melyről a fiatal egyetemistáktól kiinduló projektek, vállalkozások tanúskodnak leginkább. A Jeremie II. program 2013-as indulása ennek csak még inkább kedvez, hiszen itt kifejezetten a magvető, kezdeti fázisú projektek számára négy alap áll rendelkezésre forrásaival. Elegendő tőke áll rendelkezésre a piacon, a kérdés már csak az, hogy a keresleti oldalról rendelkezésre áll e majd megfelelő számú, kockázati tőkét elbírni képes befektetési lehetőség. A programmal nyitva áll a lehetőség a magyar KKV szektor megerősödésére, nemzetközi piacokon való megjelenésére és néhány társaság kitörésére, hogy a jövőben a nagy nemzetközi kockázati tőke és a magántőke alapok számára is vonzóvá váljon a magyarországi piac.

Állami szerepvállalás a start-up vállalatok finanszírozásában

Az innovatív, induló vállalkozások kiemelt jelentőségűek a gazdasági növekedés szempontjából, de jelentős finanszírozási nehézségekkel küzdenek. A kockázati tőkések tekinthetők a fiatal, magas kockázatú vállalatok finanszírozóinak, a kockázatitőkebefektetések kínálata azonban visszaesett a 2008-as gazdasági válság hatására. Magyarországon a kockázati tőkekínálat visszaesése és a mikro-, kis- és középvállalatok rendelkezésére álló, szűkös hitelforrások olyan helyzetet teremtettek, ahol az állami szerepvállalás kerülhetett előtérbe. Tanulmányunkban áttekintjük az induló, innovatív vállalkozások finanszírozási sajátosságait, valamint a kockázatitőke-befektetések főbb jellemzőit és aktuális európai trendjeit. Ezek után az állami beavatkozással foglalkozunk: mivel indokolható az állami szerepvállalás, és az állam milyen eszközökkel segítheti az innovációk megvalósítását? Végül ennek egy megvalósulását, a Magyarországon is elindult Jeremie-programot mutatjuk be, és az eddigi kihelyezések befektetési portfólióját elemezzük a hazai gyakorlat alapján.