IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/sbusec/v28y2007i2p257-271.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Informal Investment in Transition Economies: Individual Characteristics and Clusters

Author

Listed:
  • László Szerb
  • Gábor Rappai
  • Zsolt Makra
  • Siri Terjesen

Abstract

This paper investigates the factors driving informal investment in Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia. Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data, we find that the low rates of informal investment activity and the small amounts of investments in these countries are driven by entrepreneurial behaviors consistent with limited market economy experience. We extend prior studies by investigating the role of business ownership, and identify significant differences between individuals with and without business ownership experience in terms of having start-up skills, knowing an entrepreneur and fearing failure. Cluster analysis identifies seven distinct groups of informal investors, and reveals the heterogeneity in terms of investors’ age, gender, level of education, amount of investment, start-up skills, ownership status, income, opportunity perception and country of residence. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007

Suggested Citation

  • László Szerb & Gábor Rappai & Zsolt Makra & Siri Terjesen, 2007. "Informal Investment in Transition Economies: Individual Characteristics and Clusters," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 257-271, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:28:y:2007:i:2:p:257-271
    DOI: 10.1007/s11187-006-9019-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11187-006-9019-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11187-006-9019-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 2002. "Transition, The First Ten Years : Analysis and Lessons for Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14042.
    2. Klapper, Leora & Sarria-Allende, Virginia & Sulla, Victor, 2002. "Small and medium size enterprise financing in Eastern Europe," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2933, The World Bank.
    3. Mike Wright & Judit Karsai & Zbigniew Dudzinski & Jan Morovic, 1999. "Transition and Active Investors: Venture Capital in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 27-46.
    4. Zoltán J. Ács & Colm O'Gorman & László Szerb & Siri Terjesen, 2015. "Could the Irish Miracle be Repeated in Hungary?," Chapters, in: Global Entrepreneurship, Institutions and Incentives, chapter 30, pages 584-603, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Rebecca Harding, 2002. "Plugging the knowledge gap: An international comparison of the role for policy in the venture capital market," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 59-76, January.
    6. Hector Rocha, 2004. "Entrepreneurship and Development: The Role of Clusters," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 363-400, October.
    7. Mike Wright, 1998. "Venture Capital and Private Equity: A Review and Synthesis," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5&6), pages 521-570.
    8. Markku Maula & Erkko Autio & Pia Arenius, 2005. "What Drives Micro-Angel Investments?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 459-475, December.
    9. Tomi Ovaska & Russell S. Sobel, 2005. "Entrepreneurship in Post-Socialist Economies," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 21(Fall 2005), pages 8-28.
    10. Valentijn Bilsen & Elena Mitina, 1999. "Financing Firm Start-up and Restructuring in Transition Countries: Evidence from Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia," Working Papers wp150, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    11. Kornai, Janos, 1990. "The Affinity between Ownership Forms and Coordination Mechanisms: The Common Experience of Reform in Socialist Countries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 131-147, Summer.
    12. Tyson, Laura d'Andrea & Petrin, Tea & Rogers, F Halsey, 1994. "Promoting Entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 165-184, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. László Szerb, 2008. "The Examination of the Level of Entrepreneurship in Eight Central Eastern European Countries," Proceedings-6th International Conference on Management, Enterprise and Benchmarking (MEB 2008), in: György Kadocsa (ed.),6th International Conference on Management, Enterprise and Benchmarking MEB 2008-Proceedings, pages 69-83, Óbuda University, Keleti Faculty of Business and Management.
    2. Hong Joo Lee, 2019. "What Factors Are Necessary for Sustaining Entrepreneurship?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-20, May.
    3. László Szerb & William Trumbull, 2015. "Entrepreneurship and transition in the European transition countries," ERSA conference papers ersa15p669, European Regional Science Association.
    4. Claudia Álvarez & David Urbano & José Amorós, 2014. "GEM research: achievements and challenges," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 445-465, March.
    5. Jenny Berrill & Martha O’Hagan-Luff & André Stel, 2020. "The moderating role of education in the relationship between FDI and entrepreneurial activity," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1041-1059, April.
    6. László Szerb & Siri Terjesen & Gábor Rappai, 2007. "Seeding new ventures -- green thumbs and fertile fields: Individual and environmental drivers of informal investment," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 257-284, April.
    7. Ratan J. S. Dheer, 2017. "Cross-national differences in entrepreneurial activity: role of culture and institutional factors," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 813-842, April.
    8. Artjoms Ivlevs & Milena Nikolova & Olga Popova, 2021. "Former Communist party membership and present-day entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1783-1800, December.
    9. Nir Kshetri, 2009. "Entrepreneurship in post-socialist economies: A typology and institutional contexts for market entrepreneurship," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 236-259, September.
    10. Claudia Alvarez & David Urbano, 2008. "Entorno e Iniciativa Emprendedora: una Perspectiva Institucional," Working Papers 0807, Departament Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, revised Dec 2008.
    11. Acs, Zoltan & Virgill, Nicola, 2010. "Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries," Foundations and Trends(R) in Entrepreneurship, now publishers, vol. 6(1), pages 1-68, February.
    12. Szerb, László & Kocsis-Kisantal, Orsolya, 2008. "Vállalkozói kultúra Magyarországon két napilap tükrében [Corporate culture in Hungary seen through two daily newspapers]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(3), pages 243-261.
    13. Cumming, Douglas & Deloof, Marc & Manigart, Sophie & Wright, Mike, 2019. "New directions in entrepreneurial finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 252-260.
    14. Justin Lin & Peilin Liu, 2006. "Economic Development Strategy, Openness and Rural Poverty: A Framework and China's Experiences," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-43, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Honjo, Yuji & Ikeuchi, Kenta & Nakamura, Hiroki, 2024. "Does risk aversion affect individuals’ interests and actions in angel investing? Empirical evidence from Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    16. R. Sandra Schillo & Ajax Persaud & Meng Jin, 2016. "Entrepreneurial readiness in the context of national systems of entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 619-637, April.
    17. Carolin Bock & Maximilian Schmidt, 2015. "Should I stay, or should I go? – How fund dynamics influence venture capital exit decisions," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 68-82, November.
    18. Patzelt, Holger & zu Knyphausen-Aufseß, Dodo & Fischer, Heiko T., 2009. "Upper echelons and portfolio strategies of venture capital firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 558-572, November.
    19. Justin Yifu Lin & David Rosenblatt, 2012. "Shifting patterns of economic growth and rethinking development," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 171-194, September.
    20. Zbigniew Polański, 1992. "The financial system in post-communist countries: the Polish lessons," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 27(6), pages 261-268, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    informal investment; entrepreneurship; Global Entrepreneurship Monitor; CEE; transition economies; G24; G28; L26; M13; P20;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
    • P20 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:28:y:2007:i:2:p:257-271. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.