Call for papers: Performance of Public Policy and Venture Capital

Call for papers: Performance of Public Policy and Venture Capital

A special issue of International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management

Venture capital firms not only fund but also proactively support the development of high-potential companies in the early stages of their development and growth, often creating highly skilled employment in new innovative areas where other sources of finance are hard to access. For private equity and venture capital to contribute to sustained economic growth, competitiveness and innovation policymakers must ensure coherent, inclusive policies, which will enable the industry to continue to provide a continuous financing cycle for start ups, spin-offs, company transition and buyout investments. The further development of fiscal, legal and regulatory frameworks that are more conductive to entrepreneurship, innovation and investment is central to economic health and competitiveness.

For countries to remain competitive, policymakers should support regulations that encourage investments, improve tax and legal measures to develop a truly favourable environment, and ease the raising and deployment of private equity and venture capital funds to drive a high-growth entrepreneurial economy. The patenting activity is also conductive to the creation of global competitive advantage through intellectual property rights. Those rights are key to supporting and financing innovation, as no-one would allocate resources in new technologies without the perspective of securing return on investment.

The special issue welcomes studies that focus on the public strategies for private equity and adopt a theoretical or empirical approachs to explaining the performance of the public policy support to venture capital and innovation, including, but not limited to the following topics:

• The performance of public sector as a key venture capital player
• The impact of public incentives (management package, stock options¡K) and fiscal advantages on the local private equity industry (venture capital and leveraged buy out)
• Value added contribution of business incubators, sciences parks, clusters and public seed funds to local economy and regional development
• Public venture capital strategy in emerging countries (Asia, MENA...)
• Impact of public "small caps" stock markets on the Venture capital industry through IPO (as Le Marché Alternext in France)

Important Dates
Deadline for submission: 30 May, 2008
Notification of acceptance before: 15 September, 2008
Submission of final and revised manuscripts: 1 December, 2008