Julia Korosteleva

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.

The Belarusian Case of Transition:Whither Financial Repression?

This article examines the financial development of Belarus, with special emphasis on 1996–2002, when the financial sector was restrained by pervasive government controls. Belarus is of particular interest as, despite no economic restructuring, annual growth has averaged 7% since 1997. It has been argued that monetary stimulation of investment through interest rate ceilings, directed credit and preferential loans revived growth. This article investigates whether a repressive financial policy adopted by the authorities in the late 1990s led to financial deepening and increased the share of savings allocated to investment.

Entrepreneurial dynamics and higher education institutions in the post-Communist world

ABSTRACT Entrepreneurial dynamics and higher education institutions in the post-Communist world. Regional Studies. This study draws on the institutional and regional entrepreneurship literature to develop a conceptual framework that analyses the impact of higher education institutions on entrepreneurial dynamics. It is used to examine the cities of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) during the period 1995–2008. Extending the multi-pillar institutional concept, it is found that higher education institutions play a prominent role in fostering entrepreneurial dynamics in CIS cities through multiple channels, including human capital development, cultivating a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship, affecting the perceptions of the knowledge and skills needed to start up a successful business, and knowledge spillovers.

Maximizing Seigniorage and Inflation Tax: The Case of Belarus

Realizing the inflationary potential of money creation, by the mid-1990s, most Central European countries had switched to market instrument-based monetary policy. Belarus continued to use money emission, gaining seigniorage and inflation tax. The productivity of the inflation tax can be analyzed by comparing the revenue actually raised from inflation tax with the revenue that could be raised if the quantity of money had risen at a constant rate. The present paper, based on Cagans (1956) seminal work, analyzes the effect of inflation on seigniorage revenue in Belarus, drawing conclusions about the effectiveness of monetary policy in 1995-2002, and about the consequences of inflationary financing.

Technology choices and growth: testing New Structural Economics in Transition Economies

We explore the relationship between development policies, finance and growth as approached by New Structural Economics (NSE) with special reference to Transition Economies (TEs). On a sample of 164 economies for 1963–2009, our analysis confirms NSE propositions that the type of development policies, as captured by the Technology Choice Index (TCI), has a significant effect on long-term growth. However, this differs for TEs as a whole and its subgroups. Further to this, using a sample of 94 countries for 1985–2009, we provide a first empirical test of the relationship between growth, TCI and financial structure distortions and we show that there is a negative relationship between financial distortions and TCI on the one hand and medium-term growth on the other hand. We also find that the negative effect of a higher ratio of TCI on medium-term growth is partly mitigated, although not eliminated, by moderate level of financial sector distortions. This points towards some positive externalities of simultaneous financial and industrial sector distortions, at least in the medium run. However, TEs are shown to differ from the rest of the sample as financial distortions play a more pronounced direct negative effect on medium-term growth in these countries.