ABSTRACT

This article aims to evaluate the impact of public venture capital (VC) initiatives in the form of government-subsidized participative loans on the future growth of technology-based start-ups. We also analyze the role of the business cycle at the time of birth in firms’ growth potential. To do this, we take advantage of a unique data set on Spanish technology-based start-ups that includes information about the profile of the technological entrepreneur at the time of birth and data on company accounts for the period 2001–2018. This information allows accounting for potential selection and endogeneity problems by using matching techniques. Our evidence is consistent with an effectiveness of this kind of public VC initiative to encourage firms’ development through their medium-term effect on growth rates of sales and labor productivity and on intangible assets intensity, but only for start-ups created before the economic crisis. We also find that this latter set of start-ups has greater employment growth rates than other start-ups born during the crisis. These results are in line with the hypothesis that firms’ growth is partly determined by the phase of the business cycle at the time of birth.

摘要

本文旨在评估以政府补贴的参与性贷款形式的公共风险投资 (VC) 举措对技术型初创企业未来增长的影响。我们还分析了企业诞生时的商业周期对公司增长潜力的作用。为此，我们利用了西班牙技术型初创企业的独特数据集，其中包括技术企业家出生时的概况信息和 2001-2018 年期间公司账户的数据。该信息允许通过使用匹配技术来解决潜在的选择和内生性问题。我们的证据与这种公共风险投资计划的有效性一致，通过其对销售增长率和劳动生产率以及无形资产强度的中期影响来鼓励公司发展，但仅适用于经济危机之前创建的初创企业. 我们还发现，后一组初创企业的就业增长率高于危机期间诞生的其他初创企业。这些结果与公司的增长部分取决于出生时的商业周期阶段的假设是一致的。