Isabel Grilo

Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurship Policy

This unique Handbook provides a solid foundation for essential study in the nascent field of entrepreneurship policy research. This foundation is initially developed via the exploration of two significant propositions underpinning the nature of entrepreneurship policy research. The first is that entrepreneurship has emerged as a bona fide focus of public policy, particularly with respect to economic growth and employment creation. The second is that neither scholars nor policy makers are presently equipped to understand the public policy role for entrepreneurship.

Price competition when consumer behavior is characterized by conformity or vanity

It has long been recognized that the pleasure of consuming a good may be affected by the consumption choice of other consumers. In some cases, social pressures may lead to conformity; in some others, individuals may feel the need of exclusiveness under the form of vanity. Such externalities have proven to be important in several markets. However, the market implication of these externalities are still unclear. To investigate them, we propose to combine the consumption externality model and the spatial duopoly model. When conformity is present but not too strong, both firms remain in business but price competition is fiercer and results in lower prices. The market share of the large firm increases with the population size; as the population keeps rising, the large firm may serve the entire market and set a price that has the nature of a limit price. When conformity is strong enough, different equilibria may exist. In most of these equilibria, a single firm captures the whole market. At the other extreme, when vanity is at work, price competition is relaxed.

Explaining Entrepreneurship and the Role of Policy: A Framework

This unique Handbook provides a solid foundation for essential study in the nascent field of entrepreneurship policy research. This foundation is initially developed via the exploration of two significant propositions underpinning the nature of entrepreneurship policy research. The first is that entrepreneurship has emerged as a bona fide focus of public policy, particularly with respect to economic growth and employment creation. The second is that neither scholars nor policy makers are presently equipped to understand the public policy role for entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship in the old en new Europe

Developing a dynamic SME sector is essential for countries transforming their centrally planned economy into a market oriented one. New firm formation is the major driver of this transition. Obviously, entrepreneurial energy is a necessary condition for new firm formation. This paper uses 2004 survey data from the 25 EU member states and the US to explain country differences in entrepreneurial energy. This energy is captured as latent and actual entrepreneurship.

Mixed Duopoly Under Vertical Differentiation

In this paper we study a vertically differentiated duopoly market with a profit maximizing firm (private firm) and a total surplus maximizing firm (public firm). The technological conditions are assumed identical for both firms and are described by unit costs which are constant with respect to quantity, though increasing in quality. No specific form is given to the relation between unit costs and quality. We prove that the socially optimal solution can be sustained as a market outcome by using a public firm as a market agent. We also provide conditions on the constant unit cost function under which every market outcome is a social optimum.

Globalization, entrepreneurship and the region

The present document analyzes the linkages between globalization, entrepreneurship and the role of regions. After dealing with the meaning of globalization, the regional dimension of the response to globalization is described where downsizing, knowledge spillovers and agglomeration are the essential phenomena. Next, it is shown how these developments have led to the emergence of new entrepreneurial activities. Subsequently, more details are given on the effects of the information and communication (ICT) revolution on the organization of industry in a globalized economy. Finally, it is concluded that policies promoting both knowledge investments as well as entrepreneurship have become prominent for many regions in the most developed countries.

Globalization and Relocation in a Vertically Differentiated Industry

This paper uses a vertical differentiation duopoly framework to analyze firms’ relocation decisions, when the removal of trade barriers or restrictions on capital outflows or inflows (“globalization”) allows them to serve the domestic market through foreign plants in low-wage countries. The relocation of the entire industry yields net welfare costs, but the relocation of one (and only one) firm, may be welfare improving. When the economy is “high-(or low-) quality biased,” the relocation of the firm producing the high- (or low-) quality variant is preferred, on welfare terms, to that of other firms, if the wage differential is large enough.

'Social Dumping' and Relocation: Is there a Case for Imposing a Social Clause?

Public opinion in Europe seems worried about the effect of lower-wage country competition. In both newspaper articles and in policy debates, the term ‘social dumping’ is becoming more and more popular. In many countries, trade unions worried by the effect of what they call ‘unfair competition’, propose the adoption of a ‘social clause’ protecting domestic markets from commodities produced in countries were minimal labour conditions are not met. We analyse the effects of such a policy in the framework of a vertically differentiated Bertrand duopoly. In particular, we study the effects of such a policy on the relocation decisions of the firms and perform a welfare analysis. The welfare analysis takes explicitly into account the unemployment situation in the domestic country by accounting for the workers’ welfare losses due to job reductions following the relocation of firms. We characterize the optimal social clause policy both under domestic welfare maximization and from an efficiency point of view. We show that, on domestic welfare grounds, the case for a social clause policy is weaker the higher the domestic wage and the lower the foreign wage.

Delegation in a Vertically Differentiated Duopoly

In a context of vertical product differentiation we analyze the effect of delegation on quality. We consider a duopoly where firms can delegate to an agent the quality determining activities. The quality level is determined by the level of a random fixed cost. The actual realization of this fixed cost is known, at no cost, to the firm or to the agent that undertakes the activities a..c;sociated with this fixed cost. By delegating a firm faces an asymmetry of information since the owner cannot observe the realization of the random variable, while his agent has ex ante full information concerning the actual state of nature. When one firm delegates and the other does not, we find two equilibria that mimic the full information situation, and two equilibria which display quality levels for the delegating firm lower than the full information ones. When the delegation decision is endogenous there are equilibria configurations with zero, one and two delegating firms.

Cournot equilibrium without apology: Existence and the Cournot inverse demand function

In a multi-commodity framework with absence of wealth effects, we prove the existence of equilibrium for Cournot oligopoly, and that the concept is completely non-ambiguous. We also obtain a uniquely defined endogenous inverse demand function, depending only on the competitive sector.