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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Determinants of the prevalence of start-ups and high-growth firms

TLDR
In this article, the authors identify key institutional determinants of firm emergence and growth using various types of data from Sweden and provide evidence of a low prevalence of nascent entrepreneurs and a small net employment contribution by high-growth firms.
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to identify key institutional determinants of firm emergence and growth. We do this using various types of data from Sweden. A characterization of a number of institutions and policy measures shows that they are likely to have contributed to an environment that discourages entrepreneurial activity and firm growth. Aspects dealt with include: missing arenas for entrepreneurship in the care sectors and for household-related services, taxation of entrepreneurial income, incentives for wealth accumulation, wage-setting institutions and labor market regulations. Using original data, we provide evidence of a low prevalence of nascent entrepreneurs and a small net employment contribution by high-growth firms. We admit that indisputable evidence for the effects of institutional arrangements is almost impossible to establish. However, the consistency of our theoretical arguments and empirical data makes a strong case for the notion that the Swedish case illustrates the costs of giving too little weight to economic renewal in policy making.

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Gazelles as job creators: a survey and interpretation

TL;DR: This article conducted a meta-analysis of the empirical evidence regarding whether net employment growth rather is generated by a few small and young firms, and found that small firms account for a disproportionately large share of employment growth.
Journal ArticleDOI

Gazelles as job creators: a survey and interpretation of the evidence

TL;DR: This article conducted a meta-analysis of the empirical evidence regarding whether net employment growth rather is generated by a few rapidly growing firms that are not necessarily small and young, and found that Gazelles are outstanding job creators.
Journal ArticleDOI

Institutional context and the allocation of entrepreneurial effort

TL;DR: This paper found that the allocation of entrepreneurial effort toward high-growth activities is positively related to a country's financial and educational activities targeted at entrepreneurship, and negatively related to the country's level of corruption.
Journal ArticleDOI

Small business growth: recent evidence and new directions

TL;DR: The authors reviewed empirical contributions to the small business growth literature since the mid-1990s and suggested that future research needs to adopt multiple measures of growth and, more importantly, be based on theory longitudinal in scope but idiosyncratic in its focus.
Journal ArticleDOI

Which institutions encourage entrepreneurial growth aspirations

TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop entrepreneurship and institutional theory to explain entrepreneurial growth aspirations across individuals and institutional contexts, and find that the relationship between growth aspiring entrepreneurs and institutions is complex; they benefit simultaneously from strong government (in the sense of property rights enforcement), and smaller government, but are constrained by corruption.
References
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Book ChapterDOI

Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a critique of expected utility theory as a descriptive model of decision making under risk, and develop an alternative model, called prospect theory, in which value is assigned to gains and losses rather than to final assets and in which probabilities are replaced by decision weights.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Market for “Lemons”: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a struggling attempt to give structure to the statement: "Business in under-developed countries is difficult"; in particular, a structure is given for determining the economic costs of dishonesty.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Economic Institutions of Capitalism

TL;DR: The Economic Institutions of Capitalism as mentioned in this paper is a seminal work in the field of economic institutions of capitalism. Journal of Economic Issues: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 528-530.
Journal ArticleDOI

Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive

TL;DR: In this article, historical evidence from ancient Rome, early China, and the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe is used to investigate the hypotheses that, while the total supply of entrepreneurs varies among societies, the productive contribution of the society's entrepreneurial activities varies much more because of their allocation between productive activities and largely unproductive activities such as rent seeking or organized crime.
Book

Understanding the small business sector

David Storey
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce the key characteristics of the small business sector and examine the specific problems that face small business owners, showing how the business environment for the smaller firm differs from that of larger companies, and how far their success or failure depends on the wider economic climate.