This paper does two things. First, it presents alternative approaches to the standard methods of estimating productive efficiency using a production function. It favours a parametric approach (viz. the stochastic production frontier approach) over a non-parametric approach (e.g. data envelopment...

This paper does two things. First, it presents alternative approaches to the standard methods of estimating productive efficiency using a production function. It favours a parametric approach (viz. the stochastic production frontier approach) over a nonparametric approach (e.g. data envelopment...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of risk handling arrangements adopted in the relationship between the venture capital investor and his investee. The theoretical framework adopted is principal-agent analysis, which views the investee as a risk averse agent entering into a risk sharing...

This paper has four purposes. First, to establish the policy background leading to a special financial reporting standard for small firms (FRSSE), aimed at reducing compliance costs. An indirect policy implication of this was that small firms would be stimulated, for example, in terms of...

This paper argues that Coase provides the primary 20th century exemplar of the grounding of analytical developments in economics in direct fieldwork observation. In particular, his focus on the business enterprise, its internal functions (including decision‐making), and its external relations...

<title/> This paper appeals to UK evidence on venture capital. The investor is regarded as the principal, and the investee as the agent. Relations between the two are analysed in terms of risk management, information handling, and the trading of risk and information. In the data analysed, investors and...

This paper supports two key principles of real options reasoning: (a) the value of waiting and (b) the value of staging. It tests whether real options logic applies to small firms implementing significant changes (e.g. in technology) in a model of small firm performance, estimated on data...