IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cir/cirwor/2005s-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Usefulness of Tax Incentives for Business Angels and SME Owners: An Empirical Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Cécile Carpentier
  • Jean-Marc Suret

Abstract

Several governments have designed tax incentive programs to promote small business finance, yet evidence of their efficiency is very scarce. This article analyzes the QBIC program, introduced in Quebec to help capitalize SME. Individual investors in holding companies that finance one or more small corporations receive substantial tax credits. First, the functioning of the program is analyzed in light of the fundamentals of the small business finance paradigm, in particular the adverse selection, agency cost and control aversion problems. Because the program design does not consider these dimensions, it putatively cannot fulfill its primary objective of attracting angels. Rather, it should mainly serve mediocre quality firms, whose subsequent performance should be weak. We analyze the ownership of all the QBICs accredited between 1998 and 2003, and the operating performance of the 83 financed companies for which accounting data were available. Our tests confirm each of our hypotheses. The program can hardly be considered as a success. In terms of public policy, the study concludes that poorly designed programs cannot attain the objective of promoting small business capitalization. De nombreux gouvernements ont instauré des programmes fiscaux destinés à promouvoir le financement des petites et moyennes entreprises. Il existe toutefois très peu d'études de l'efficacité de ces initiatives. Nous analysons le programme de Société de placements dans l'entreprise québécoise (SPEQ), instauré au Québec pour améliorer la capitalisation des petites et moyennes entreprises. Les actionnaires de sociétés de portefeuille obtiennent d'importants crédits d'impôt lorsque ces sociétés financent des entreprises admissibles. Nous analysons en premier lieu le programme à la lumière des principes de base du financement des entreprises : l'asymétrie informationnelle, les problèmes d'anti-sélection et d'agence et la réticence à partager le contrôle. Comme le programme ne tient aucun compte de ces diverses dimensions, nous posons l'hypothèse qu'il ne permettra pas l'atteinte de l'objectif premier, qui était d'attirer des investisseurs providentiels dans l'actionnariat des entreprises. Nous supposons également que le programme devrait attirer principalement des entreprises de qualité médiocre, dont la performance après le placement sera faible. L'analyse de l'ensemble des SPEQ agréées entre 1998 et 2003 et des 83 sociétés financées pour lesquelles des données comptables sont accessibles permet de confirmer chacune de ces hypothèses. Le programme n'atteint pas ses objectifs et ne peut pas être considéré comme un succès. L'étude met en évidence l'importance de dessiner très soigneusement les programmes d'aide au financement des petites entreprises.

Suggested Citation

  • Cécile Carpentier & Jean-Marc Suret, 2005. "On the Usefulness of Tax Incentives for Business Angels and SME Owners: An Empirical Analysis," CIRANO Working Papers 2005s-13, CIRANO.
    • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2005s-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cirano.qc.ca/files/publications/2005s-13.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Berger, Allen & F. Udell, Gregory, 1998. "The economics of small business finance: The roles of private equity and debt markets in the financial growth cycle," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6-8), pages 613-673, August.
    2. Berggren, Bjorn & Olofsson, Christer & Silver, Lars, 2000. "Control Aversion and the Search for External Financing in Swedish SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 233-242.
    3. Colin Mason & Richard Harrison, 2003. "Closing the Regional Equity Gap? A Critique of the Department of Trade and Industry's Regional Venture Capital Funds Initiative," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(8), pages 855-868.
    4. Cressy, Robert & Olofsson, Christer, 1997. "European SME Financing: An Overview," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 87-96, April.
    5. Lerner, Joshua, 1998. ""Angel" financing and public policy: An overview," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6-8), pages 773-783, August.
    6. Josh Lerner, 2002. "When Bureaucrats Meet Entrepreneurs: The Design of Effective "Public Venture Capital" Programmes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(477), pages 73-84, February.
    7. Cumming, Douglas J., 2005. "Capital structure in venture finance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 550-585, June.
    8. Björn Berggren & Christer Olofsson & Lars Silver, 2000. "Control Aversion and The Search for External Financing in Swedish SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 233-242, November.
    9. Douglas J. Cumming & Jeffrey G. MacIntosh, 2003. "Comparative Venture Capital Governance. Private versus Labour Sponsored Venture Capital Funds," CESifo Working Paper Series 853, CESifo.
    10. Paul Gompers & Josh Lerner, 2001. "The Venture Capital Revolution," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 145-168, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Solodoha, Eliran & Rosenzweig, Stav & Harel, Shai, 2023. "Incentivizing angels to invest in start-ups: Evidence from a natural experiment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1).

    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. Valérie Revest & Alessandro Sapio, 2012. "Financing technology-based small firms in Europe: what do we know?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 179-205, July.
    2. Johannes Wallmeroth & Peter Wirtz & Alexander Peter Groh, 2017. "Institutional Seed Financing, Angel Financing, and Crowdfunding of Entrepreneurial Ventures: A Literature Review," Working Papers hal-01527999, HAL.
    3. John Armour & Douglas Cumming, 2006. "The legislative road to Silicon Valley," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(4), pages 596-635, October.
    4. Bergner, Sören Martin & Bräutigam, Rainer & Evers, Maria Theresia & Spengel, Christoph, 2017. "The use of SME tax incentives in the European Union," ZEW Discussion Papers 17-006, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Dowling, Michael & O’Gorman, Colm & Puncheva, Petya & Vanwalleghem, Dieter, 2019. "Trust and SME attitudes towards equity financing across Europe," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1-1.
    6. Robert E. Carpenter & Bruce C. Petersen, 2002. "Capital Market Imperfections, High-Tech Investment, and New Equity Financing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(477), pages 54-72, February.
    7. Yannis Pierrakis & George Saridakis, 2019. "The role of venture capitalists in the regional innovation ecosystem: a comparison of networking patterns between private and publicly backed venture capital funds," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 850-873, June.
    8. John Armour & Douglas Cumming, 2004. "The Legal Road To Replicating Silicon Valley," Working Papers wp281, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    9. Mats Håkan Wilhelmsson, 2017. "The effect of house prices on business start-ups: A review and analysis using Swedish regional data," REGION, European Regional Science Association, vol. 4, pages 1-16.
    10. Jun Du & Alessandra Guariglia & Alexander Newman, 2010. "Does social capital affect the financing decisions of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises?," Discussion Papers 10/13, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    11. Jeaneth Johansson & Malin Malmström & Joakim Wincent, 2021. "Sustainable Investments in Responsible SMEs: That’s What’s Distinguish Government VCs from Private VCs," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-22, January.
    12. Forbeneh Agha Jude & Ntieche Adamou, 2018. "Bank Loan Financing Decisions of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: The Significance of Owner/Managers¡¯ Behaviours," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(5), pages 231-241, May.
    13. Gil Avnimelech & Alessandro Rosiello & Morris Teubal, 2010. "Evolutionary interpretation of venture capital policy in Israel, Germany, UK and Scotland," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 37(2), pages 101-112, March.
    14. Baeyens, K. & Manigart, S., 2006. "Who gets private equity? The role of debt capacity, growth and intangible assets," Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School Working Paper Series 2006-24, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School.
    15. Ciarán mac an Bhaird & Brian Lucey, 2010. "Determinants of capital structure in Irish SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 357-375, October.
    16. Massimo Colombo & Luca Grilli, 2007. "Funding Gaps? Access To Bank Loans By High-Tech Start-Ups," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 25-46, June.
    17. Milen Baltov, 2008. "Challenges in Front of the Financing of the Innovation Active Small and Medium-sized Enterprises – Regional Prospects," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 4, pages 109-131.
    18. Collewaert, V. & Manigart, S. & Rudy Aernoudt, 2007. "An assessment of government funding of business angel networks: a regional study," Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School Working Paper Series 2007-16, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School.
    19. Pierrakis, Yannis & Saridakis, George, 2017. "Do publicly backed venture capital investments promote innovation? Differences between privately and publicly backed funds in the UK venture capital market," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 55-64.
    20. Cécile Carpentier & Jean-Marc Suret, 2005. "The Indirect Costs of Venture Capital in Canada," CIRANO Working Papers 2005s-25, CIRANO.

    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:cir:cirwor:2005s-13. 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: Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ciranca.html .

    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.