International Entrepreneurship Conference CoDE at ZEW

The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) and the Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (MaCCI) held the International Conference on the Dynamics of Entrepreneurship (CoDE) October 4-5, 2012. The conference was sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung.

80 participants discussed recent scientific contributions on entrepreneurship research, among others: human capital of founders, regional aspects of entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial financing. 39 new scientific papers, selected from about 100 applications, stimulated the discussions. In addition, five keynote speeches covered a broad range of challenges of entrepreneurship research and policy. Maryann Feldman (University North Carolina at Greensboro) reported on successful practices for high-tech cluster taking the research triangle as an example. Franco Malerba (Bocconi University) dealt with knowledge-intensive start-ups in several EU member states. Massimo Colombo (Politecnico di Milano) highlighted the impact of different types of venture capitalists on the performance of portfolio firms. Lars Persson (IFN Stockholm) developed a basic model to study the impact of profit tax and capital gains tax on the quality of startups. Roy Thurik (Erasmus University Rotterdam) surveyed the young literature on the link between genetics and the quality of start-ups.

Reinhilde Veugelers (Catholic University Leuven) moderated a panel discussion on the government’s role in financing high-growth firms. The panelists were composed of policy makers, policy consultants, government VCs, and cluster managers. The panel, Alexander von Frankenberg (Managing director of High-Tech Gründerfonds), Peter Hofelich (Government Representative for the State of Baden-Württemberg for SMEs and Craft-based Industries), Christian Tidona (Managing director of the BioRN cluster) und Karen Wilson (OECD), suggested that in the current state of VC markets in Germany and Europe, government’s intervention in the seed investment are called for as private CV hesitate to invest in the earliest stage of high-tech start-ups.