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In recent years (1 October 2017 - 31 December 2019), six municipalities have conducted experiments in the assistance under the Temporary Decree Experiments Participation Act. The aim was to improve the implementation of the Participation Act through less control and coercion and more room for own direction, extra guidance and customization. The municipalities have asked the research institutes to scientifically investigate the results of these experiments. In order to be able to compare, the researchers used the same questionnaire in all six municipalities, the same outcome measures were used and the analysis model is also the same. However, because the experiments are designed at the municipal level, the differences between the municipalities and the experiments implemented are too big to really be able to combine the data. For a complete comparison and interpretation of the six experiments, we refer to the local final reports. The experiments, however, each individually, but above all in conjunction, provide relevant information for (future) policy that can fuel the discussion about the future of social security in the Netherlands. That is why we decided to write this joint semi-trailer to provide an initial insight into the broader outcomes on a selection of outcome measures. After a brief summary of the conclusions, we will discuss the various experiments and some important outcome measures in more detail.

This paper examines how banks adjust their asset structure in response to changes in loan demand following natural disasters. We demonstrate how banks' asset diversification strategy helps clients smooth consumption and supports local recovery. In the empirical section, we apply the difference-in-differences method and determine that U.S. commercial banks increase real estate lending after disasters and sell government bonds to finance this disaster-driven credit surge. The theoretical section presents a novel multiple-asset dynamic credit allocation model that explains our empirical findings. We use model simulations to predict and quantify the potential impact of climate change on the asset structure and profitability of banks given different scenarios.

In this paper we first propose a proxy for early stage activity in a country’s exports based on product life cycle theory. Employing a conditional latent class model, we then examine the relationship between this measure and economic growth for 93 countries during the period 1988–2005. We find that the impact of early stage activity differs across three clusters of countries. And we find that GDP levels can predict the cluster and the sign of the coefficient in a non-linear manner. In the richest countries, exporting products that are in an early stage of their product life cycle is associated with higher growth rates. In contrast, we find a cluster of middle income countries with high growth rates that grow faster by exporting more mature products that are in the later stages of their life cycle. Finally, early stage activity has no significant impact on growth in the cluster of the poorest, developing countries. Countries in early stages of development should focus on acquiring market share in mature markets with routine technologies whereas emerging economies face the challenge of at some point switching from copying mature to inventing new products as they approach the global technology frontier. At that frontier they must join the advanced economies who specialise in early stage innovative products to stay ahead of increasing competition from abroad.

Item does not contain fulltext, Welke handelings- en interventiestrategieën van gemeenten dragen bij aan perspectief op werk en een verbetering van het welbevinden en vertrouwen van mensen in de bijstand? Zes gemeenten - Groningen, Utrecht, Tilburg, Wageningen, Deventer en Nijmegen - hebben de afgelopen jaren (van 1 oktober 2017 tot 31 december 2019) unieke randomised controlled trials uitgevoerd in de bijstand. De volgende (combinatie van) interventies zijn onderzocht: ontheffing van re-integratieverplichtingen, intensivering van begeleiding en vrijlating van bijverdiensten. Er is zowel gekeken naar uitstroom naar werk als naar baanzoekintensiteit, welbevinden, zelfredzaamheid en sociaal vertrouwen. De uitstroom naar werk is bij alle interventies niet lager dan de huidige aanpak, terwijl de uitstroom naar deeltijdwerk in sommige gemeenten hoger is. Vooral intensivering op maat en vrijlating kan uitstroom naar werk (minimaal in deeltijd) vergroten. Voor wat betreft de effecten op baanzoekintensiteit, zelfredzaamheid, welbevinden en vertrouwen, is het beeld diffuus. We vinden kleine en soms ook positieve effecten, vooral voor zelfredzaamheid en vertrouwen, maar het beeld is niet eenduidig. De kleine aantallen deelnemers in de experimenten maken het lastig statistisch significante effecten te vinden.

This open access book is an outcome of the EU’s Horizon 2020 project ‘Financial and Institutional Reforms for an Entrepreneurial Society’ (FIRES). Building on historical, economic and legal analysis, and combining methods and data across disciplines, the authors provide policymakers, stakeholders and scholars with valuable new tools for assessing and improving Europe’s entrepreneurial ecosystems. Then experts from Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom discuss tailored strategies for introducing entrepreneurial policy reforms in their respective countries.

Wat is de beste manier om mensen met een bijstandsuitkering te begeleiden richting participatie of betaald werk? Om deze vraag te beantwoorden hebben we in opdracht van de gemeente Utrecht het onderzoek Weten wat werkt uitgevoerd. Voor het onderzoek zijn 752 (35) bijstandsgerechtigden in Utrecht (Zeist) willekeurig ingedeeld in vier verschillende experimentgroepen (randomised controlled trial). Elke groep heeft zestien maanden lang een andere behandeling ontvangen. Eén groep ging 'Met extra hulp in actie', één groep ging 'Zelf in actie' en één groep ('Werken loont') mocht langer en meer bijverdiensten houden naast de uitkering. In de vierde groep, de controlegroep, veranderde niks. Om de onderzoeksvraag te beantwoorden hebben we gekeken naar effecten met betrekking tot arbeidsparticipatie, sociale participatie, gezondheid en welbevinden, klanttevredenheid en de financiële situatie. De belangrijkste resultaten op hoofdlijnen zijn: (1) In alle drie interventiegroepen treden positieve resultaten op die duiden op meer arbeidsparticipatie. (2) Eigen regie bij de deelnemers en meer handelingsruimte en tijd voor klantmanagers leiden tot positieve effecten op meerdere dimensies; het effect van een financiële prikkel beperkt zich tot banen met een lager aantal uren. (3) Meer eigen regie voor de bijstandsgerechtigden leidt tot een grotere kans op een vast contract. (4) Zowel extra hulp en begeleiding als zelf in actie gaan werkt vooral goed voor lager opgeleiden; bijstandsgerechtigden met een grote afstand tot de arbeidsmarkt hebben nagenoeg alleen baat bij extra hulp en begeleiding.

In models exploring energy transition pathways, existing investment flows are contrasted with predictions for investments needs to indicate a ‘financing-gap’ for the European energy transition. The authors draw on an in-depth analysis and comparison of the main scenarios being employed to forecast investments until 2050 as well as an analysis of the literature on the sources of finance for renewable energy. Long-term projections do not capture the supply or demand of specific sources of finance needed to cover the whole innovation chain. Our analysis reveals that under the individual investment and lending criteria/mandates the money is available. However, policy uncertainty strongly distorts investment decision making. Especially institutional investors and lenders such as pension funds and banks shy away from investments in the energy transition because of expected (policy) discontinuities and the risk of stranded assets. Moreover, more risk-bearing equity capital to finance the early stages of innovative clean energy technologies is needed to complement existing large-scale investments in existing technologies to allow for an effective and efficient mitigation that is in line with the major scenarios. Based on the analysis we develop a matrix that indicates the role for different sources of finance and new intermediation channels in the energy transition and how they need to be engaged..

This paper investigates user innovations in business incubation programs. User innovations are defined as innovations by users rather than suppliers of products, processes or services and have been identified as a potentially rich source of innovative ideas. Business incubators aim to help entrepreneurs find and develop ideas into viable businesses and have been shown to contribute to the success rate of start-ups. Current incubator acquisition strategies, however, are rather passive (founders need to apply) and selection into the incubation programs is geared towards attracting potentially profitable start-ups. User innovations often lack a dedicated founder team and the innovator typically has a lower ambition to build a venture and achieve profitability. In this paper we construct a measure based on existing literature to classify user innovations in a dataset of 296 start-ups that applied to one of two incubation programs between 2014 and 2017 in the Netherlands. Analysing this dataset, we found only 19 and find that incubator programs benefit user innovations as much as they do other ventures. Our data also suggests a negative self-selection bias of user innovations, shown by very few user innovations applying to incubation programs. At the same time only a few of the user innovations found have been selected for incubation, revealing an additional selection bias of incubator acquisition strategies towards user innovations

In this policy brief we outline a draft FIRES-reform strategy to promote an Entrepreneurial Society in Germany. The reforms proposed are derived from a seven-step process in which the academic work and stakeholder engagement activities of the FIRES-project come together. This seven step process was applied to the case of Germany in a report and this brief summarizes its findings. This brief is one of three, where the other briefs address the United Kingdom and Italy.

In this policy brief we outline a draft FIRES-reform strategy to promote an Entrepreneurial Society in Italy. The reforms proposed are derived from a seven-step process in which the academic work and stakeholder engagement activities of the FIRES-project come together. This seven step process was applied to the case of Italy in a report and this brief summarizes its findings. Italy was selected to be representative for a Mediterranean and so called mixed market economy. This brief is one of three, where the other briefs address the United Kingdom and Germany.

In this policy brief, we outline a draft FIRES-reform strategy to promote a more inclusive Entrepreneurial Society in the UK. The reforms proposed are derived from a seven-step process in which the academic work and stakeholder engagement activities of the FIRES-project come together. This process was applied to the case of the UK in a report the findings of which are briefly summarized in this report. This brief is one of three; the other briefs address Germany and Italy respectively.

In this paper, we introduce the special issue on Financial and Institutional Reforms for an Entrepreneurial Society in Europe. There are many reasons for Europe to want to make the transition to a more Entrepreneurial Society. And for decades now, policy makers are trying to bring that transition about with variations on the “educate, deregulate and finance” approach to entrepreneurship. We argue that more fundamental reforms are required to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem and bring about this transition. We then discuss the 12 contributions that pertain to five different facets of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The first two papers address the most fundamental institutional foundations of the ecosystem. The next three papers discuss the (lack of) access to knowledge and incentives to start innovative entrepreneurial ventures. That is followed by three papers that focus on the institutions that (fail to) channel financial resources to such ventures and two papers that analyze the relevance of labor market institutions. The special issue concludes with two papers investigating how the interplay of institutions and productive entrepreneurship results in economic growth.

Climate research suggests that global warming will lead to more frequent and more extreme natural disasters. Most disasters are local events with effects on local economic growth. Hence, assessing their economic impacts with the help of econometric country-level analysis may lead to biased results. Moreover, correct identification is further complicated by the possibility that local shocks shift production and consumption to neighboring locations. In this paper, annual night-time light emission data covering about 24,000 grid cells for the years 1992-2013 are matched to geocoded information on meteorological and geological events. Spatial econometric panel methods are applied to account for interdependencies between locations. Interpreting variation in light emissions as reflecting changes in economic activity, findings convey evidence for pronounced local average treatment effects and strong spatial spillovers, particularly for weather shocks. In particular, results suggest that spatial shifts of economic activity after a natural disaster are a rather local phenomenon, stressing the importance of local adaptation policies. Moreover, substantial heterogeneity across income groups and regions is identified.

Entrepreneurs and investors face challenges in the ‘thin market’ for early stage entrepreneurial finance. Improving the situation has been a priority of policy makers for at least a decade, however, the challenges in this matching process are still poorly understood. Theory suggests that matching problems may originate in different perceptions in areas such as evaluation criteria, risk and risk management by investors and entrepreneurs. To find a good match it is essential to understand what is important to your counterpart. These problems are likely to be strongest in new and capital intensive sectors, like green tech innovations. Based on a mixed methods approach using semi structured interviews and a survey with both entrepreneurs and investors mostly active in green tech innovation, this study systematically analyses where their perceptions deviate and frictions in the matching process may occur. We find that a mismatch exists in the perception of risk, the importance attached to risk, the search channels used to find a potential partner and the evaluation criteria applied in evaluating a proposition (i.e. exit, innovativeness, capabilities of teams). Our results call for policy measures to increase market transparency and inform both sides of the searching process to create a mutual understanding of the investment process.

Diversity makes the financial system more resilient. In addition, there is a diverse investment demand to make the transition to a more sustainable energy system. We need, among others, investment in energy transition, circular resource use, better water management and reducing air pollution. The two are linked. Making the financial system more diverse implies more equity, less debt, more non-bank intermediation and more specialized niche banks giving more relation based credit. This will arguably also increase the flow of funds and resources to innovative, small scale, experimental firms that will drive the sustainability transition. Higher diversity and resilience in financial markets is thus complementary and perhaps even instrumental to engineer the transition to clean energy in the real economy.