This paper studies the real effects of venture capital on targeted firms. Specifically, using a unique dataset with comprehensive information on private-and governmental venture capital investments, we examine the effects of such investments on firms' sales, employment and investments in physical capital. The results suggest that both private and public venture capital boost firm sales two to three years after the investment. The sales increase can, in turn, partially be traced to an investment effect, and partially to increased efficiency, whereas no employment effects are found. Finally, our findings suggest that government investors are more prone than private VC firms to make follow-up investments in stagnating non-growing firms.
Within the field of innovation studies, researchers have identified several market failures that hamper investment in R&D, innovation and growth in a market economy. Several policies such as government subsidies, tax deductions, soft loans, and public venture capital provided to firms that pursue R&D have therefore been recommended by researchers, in addition to regulations to increase the quality and standards of goods and services. Less attention has been paid to government failures in cases where a policy fails to achieve its stated goal, often due to conflicts between the interests of special interest groups and the public. This paper discusses the concept of government failure within an innovation policy context and why this perspective is important for policy design since it is likely that policies that aim to reduce market failures could suffer from political failures. A text analysis of all papers published in 5 leading innovation journals between 2010 and 2019, a total of 5,526 papers, indicates a lack of research about government failures, which could lead to recommendations from researches to policymakers not being successful due to political failures.
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