The nonpecuniary benefits of managing a small business are a first order consideration for many nascent entrepreneurs, yet the preference for business ownership is mostly ignored in models of entrepreneurship and occupational choice. In this paper, we study a population with varying...

In his Man, Economy, and State, Murray Rothbard introduces the catallactic function of decision-making owner, and the correspondent income of decision-making ability rent. These are supposed to exist both in ERE (they are, therefore, distinct from the capitalist function and his income, from...

Murray Rothbard developed the concept of decision-making rent as a return to a kind of unhirable labor performed by the entrepreneur in his role as owner and ultimate decision-maker of the firm. Rothbard conceived owner's rent as separate from profit and loss and the decision-making function as...

In this paper we investigate the ways in which new forms of organization enabled by digital technologies such as crowdsourcing and digital marketplaces are allowing firms to circumvent and defy traditional knowledge constraints. This is part of the broader question of when and why these forms of...

The Czech version of this paper can be found at 'http://ssrn.com/abstract=2387418' http://ssrn.com/abstract=2387418The aim of the paper is to set the agency problem into a broad context of New Institutional Economics with an emphasis on historical connections. In the first section, I explain the...

We provide empirical evidence that uncertainty (rather than risk) and optimism are distinctive characteristics of high-impact entrepreneurial firms (recently listed firms) relative to old, incumbent firms. Based on this evidence, we construct an entrepreneurial entry predation model with...

Ownership is fundamental to firm strategy, organization, and governance. Standard ownership concepts—mainly derived from agency and incomplete contracting theories—focus on its incentive effects. However, these concepts and theories neglect ownership's role as an instrument to match judgment...

There is something special about venture capital. And this “special something” goes beyond the large financial returns that can come from investing in successful start-ups. At its core, venture capital is about identifying the life-changing innovations of tomorrow and then facilitating the...

In this article I make three main arguments. First, the appropriate governance choice for firms is one that reflects the tradeoff between market failure and relational failure or, in other words, between knowledge appropriability and knowledge accessibility. Second, through what may be...

Personal strategies of owners/founders of small business startups are related to performance and to environmental uncertainty. This is done using a longitudinal data set of some 50 Dutch startups. The results suggest a dynamic process between strategy and performance.A discrimination is made...