scholarly journals Government Financing of R&D: A Mechanism Design Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-272
Author(s):  
Saul Lach ◽  
Zvika Neeman ◽  
Mark Schankerman
Keyword(s):  
Venture Capital ◽  
Adverse Selection ◽  
Optimal Policy ◽  
Welfare Gains ◽  
High Interest Rate ◽  
High Interest ◽  
Positive Externalities ◽  
Venture Capital Firms ◽  
Private Venture ◽  
The Cost

We study how to design an optimal government loan program for risky R&D projects with positive externalities. With adverse selection, the optimal government contract involves a high interest rate but nearly zero cofinancing by the entrepreneur. This contrasts sharply with observed loan schemes. With adverse selection and moral hazard, allowing for two levels of effort by the entrepreneur, the optimal policy consists of a menu of at most two contracts, one with high interest and zero self-financing and a second with a lower interest plus cofinancing. Calibrated simulations assess welfare gains from the optimal policy, observed loan programs, and a direct subsidy to private venture capital firms. The gains vary with the size of the externalities, the cost of public funds, and the effectiveness of the private venture capital industry. (JEL D82, D86, G24, L26, O31, G32, H81)

scholarly journals Overcoming Adverse Selection: How Public Intervention Can Restore Market Functioning

2012 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Tirole
Keyword(s):  
Mechanism Design ◽  
Adverse Selection ◽  
Welfare Cost ◽  
Public Intervention ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cost

The paper provides a first analysis of market jump starting and its two-way interaction between mechanism design and participation constraints. The government optimally overpays for the legacy assets and cleans up the market of its weakest assets, through a mixture of buybacks and equity injections, and leaves the firms with the strongest legacy assets to the market. The government reduces adverse selection enough to let the market rebound, but not too much, so as to limit the cost of intervention. The existence of a market imposes no welfare cost. (JEL D82, D83, G01, G31, H81)

How Starting Strategy and Network Structure Shape Problemistic Search: An Examination of Venture Capital Firms

2021 ◽  
pp. 104225872110335
Author(s):  
Jake Duke ◽  
Taha Havakhor ◽  
Rachel Mui ◽  
Owen Parker
Keyword(s):  
Venture Capital ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Theory Of The Firm ◽  
Behavioral Theory ◽  
Organizational Strategy ◽  
Search Process ◽  
Strategy Research ◽  
Structural Holes ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Venture Capital Firms

Building on the behavioral theory of the firm, we empirically examine how starting strategies and syndication networks can influence venture capital (VC) firms’ problemistic search. We propose that: (a) depending on a VC’s strategic starting point, that is, the VC’s extent of specialization, the directionality of problemistic search may change to either expanding or contracting search activities; and (b) depending on search direction, structural holes in syndication networks can either impede or facilitate the problemistic search process. In a sample of U.S. VC firms, we find results consistent with our predictions, which have important implications for entrepreneurship and organizational strategy research.

Counter-cyclical public venture capital: Debt-funding as an anti-austerity innovation strategy

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Etzkowitz ◽  
Henry Etzkowitz
Keyword(s):  
Venture Capital ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Innovation Strategy ◽  
Productive Capacity ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Low Interest Rates ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
Smart Specialization ◽  
Private Venture

This article outlines a counter-cyclical innovation strategy to achieve prosperity, derived from an innovative project, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). We identify an ‘innovation paradox’ in that the very point in the business cycle, when legislators are tempted to view austerity as a cure for economic downturns and to reduce innovation spend, is when an increase is most needed to create new industries and jobs and innovate out of recession or depression. It is both desirable and possible that policymakers resist the urge to capitulate to the innovation paradox. During periods that exhibit subdued inflation, elevated spare productive capacity, and low government borrowing rates, governments should increase their borrowings and use the proceeds to boost investment targeted towards innovation. We show how the State of California successfully utilized debt financing, traditionally reserved for physical infrastructure projects, to stimulate the development of intellectual infrastructure. Finally, we recommend a halt to European austerity policies and a ‘triple helix’ broadening of narrow ‘smart specialization’ policies that chase a private venture capital chimera. Europe should seize the present macroeconomic opportunity of low interest rates, borrow for innovation and be paid back manifold by ‘picking winners’, similarly to what the USA has been doing through DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) with GPS, as a response to Sputnik, the Internet and artificial intelligence, or the driverless car, formerly known as the ‘autonomous land vehicle’ in its military guise. Proactively targeted macroscopic investments in innovation are needed to solve the productivity/employment puzzle and foster the transition to a knowledge-based society.

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