IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/3263.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Start-ups, Venture Capitalists and the Capital Gains Tax

Author

Listed:
  • Nielsen, Soren Bo
  • Keuschnigg, Christian

Abstract

A model of start-up finance with double moral hazard is proposed. Entrepreneurs have ideas but lack their own resources as well as commercial experience. Venture capitalists provide start-up finance and managerial support. Both types of agents thus jointly contribute to the firm's success, but neither type's effort is verifiable. We find that the market equilibrium is biased towards inefficiently low venture capital support. In this situation, the capital gains tax is particularly harmful. The introduction of a small tax impairs managerial advice and leads to first order welfare losses. Once the tax is in place, limitations on loss offset may paradoxically contribute to higher quality of venture capital backed entrepreneurship and welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Nielsen, Soren Bo & Keuschnigg, Christian, 2002. "Start-ups, Venture Capitalists and the Capital Gains Tax," CEPR Discussion Papers 3263, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:3263
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP3263
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keuschnigg, Christian & Nielsen, Soren Bo, 2003. "Tax policy, venture capital, and entrepreneurship," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 175-203, January.
    2. Klaus M. Schmidt, 2003. "Convertible Securities and Venture Capital Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1139-1166, June.
    3. Keuschnigg, Christian & Nielsen, Soren Bo, 2004. "Start-ups, venture capitalists, and the capital gains tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(5), pages 1011-1042, April.
    4. Thomas Hellmann & Manju Puri, 2002. "Venture Capital and the Professionalization of Start‐Up Firms: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 169-197, February.
    5. Christian Keuschnigg & Soren Nielsen, 2001. "Public Policy for Venture Capital," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(4), pages 557-572, August.
    6. Samuel Kortum & Josh Lerner, 2000. "Assessing the Contribution of Venture Capital to Innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(4), pages 674-692, Winter.
    7. Steven N. Kaplan & Per Stromberg, 2001. "Venture Capitalists As Principals: Contracting, Screening, and Monitoring," NBER Working Papers 8202, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Christian Keuschnigg, 2004. "Taxation of a venture capitalist with a portfolio of firms," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(2), pages 285-306, April.
    9. Tirole, Jean, 2001. "Corporate Governance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 1-35, January.
    10. Steven N. Kaplan & Per Strömberg, 2003. "Financial Contracting Theory Meets the Real World: An Empirical Analysis of Venture Capital Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 281-315.
    11. Hellmann, Thomas & Puri, Manju, 2000. "The Interaction between Product Market and Financing Strategy: The Role of Venture Capital," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(4), pages 959-984.
    12. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    13. Kanniainen, Vesa & Keuschnigg, Christian, 2003. "The optimal portfolio of start-up firms in venture capital finance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(5), pages 521-534, November.
    14. James M. Poterba, 1989. "Venture Capital and Capital Gains Taxation," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 3, pages 47-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Mathias Dewatripont & Jean Tirole, 1994. "A Theory of Debt and Equity: Diversity of Securities and Manager-Shareholder Congruence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 1027-1054.
    16. Thomas Hellmann, 1998. "The Allocation of Control Rights in Venture Capital Contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(1), pages 57-76, Spring.
    17. Philippe Aghion & Jean Tirole, 1994. "The Management of Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 1185-1209.
    18. Paul A. Gompers & Josh Lerner, 1998. "What Drives Venture Capital Fundraising?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(1998 Micr), pages 149-204.
    19. Catherine Casamatta, 2003. "Financing and Advising: Optimal Financial Contracts with Venture Capitalists," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 2059-2085, October.
    20. Inderst, Roman & Mueller, Holger, 2002. "Venture Capital Contracts and Market Structure," CEPR Discussion Papers 3203, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Poterba, James M., 1989. "Capital Gains Tax Policy Toward Entrepreneurship," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 42(3), pages 375-389, September.
    22. Christian Keuschnigg & Søren Bo Nielsen, 2004. "Progressive Taxation, Moral Hazard, and Entrepreneurship," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 6(3), pages 471-490, August.
    23. Rafael Repullo & Javier Suarez, 2004. "Venture Capital Finance: A Security Design Approach," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 8(1), pages 75-108.
    24. McAfee, R Preston & McMillan, John, 1991. "Optimal Contracts for Teams," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 32(3), pages 561-577, August.
    25. Masters, Adrian M, 1998. "Efficiency of Investment in Human and Physical Capital in a Model of Bilateral Search and Bargaining," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 477-494, May.
    26. Poterba, James M., 1989. "Capital Gains Tax Policy Toward Entrepreneurship," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 42(3), pages 375-89, September.
    27. Kanniainen, Vesa & Keuschnigg, Christian, 2004. "Start-up investment with scarce venture capital support," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 1935-1959, August.
    28. Oliver Hart, 2001. "Financial Contracting," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1079-1100, December.
    29. Sahlman, William A., 1990. "The structure and governance of venture-capital organizations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 473-521, October.
    30. Robert Z. Ailber (ed.), 2001. "International Finance," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 525.
    31. Paul Gompers & Josh Lerner, 2001. "The Venture Capital Revolution," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 145-168, Spring.
    32. Laura Bottazzi & Marco Da Rin, "undated". "Euro.NM and the Financing of European Innovative Firms," Working Papers 171, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    33. Roger H. Gordon, 1998. "Can High Personal Tax Rates Encourage Entrepreneurial Activity?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 45(1), pages 49-80, March.
    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. Christian Keuschnigg & Soren Bo Nielsen, 2003. "Taxes and Venture Capital Support," Review of Finance, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 515-539.
    2. Christian Keuschnigg, 2003. "Optimal Public Policy For Venture Capital Backed Innovation," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2003 2003-09, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    3. Christian Keuschnigg, 2008. "Tax Policy for Venture Capital Backed Entrepreneurship," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2008 2008-07, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    4. Christian Keuschnigg, 2003. "Public Policy and Venture Capital Backed Innovation," CESifo Working Paper Series 1066, CESifo.
    5. Christian Keuschnigg & Søren Bo Nielsen, 2004. "Taxation and Venture Capital Backed Entrepreneurship," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 11(4), pages 369-390, August.
    6. Christian Keuschnigg & Soren Bo Nielsen, 2003. "Public Taxation and Venture Capital Backed Entrepreneurship," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2003 2003-17, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    7. Kanniainen, Vesa & Keuschnigg, Christian, 2004. "Start-up investment with scarce venture capital support," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 1935-1959, August.
    8. Rin, Marco Da & Hellmann, Thomas & Puri, Manju, 2013. "A Survey of Venture Capital Research," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 573-648, Elsevier.
    9. Cumming, Douglas, 2007. "Government policy towards entrepreneurial finance: Innovation investment funds," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 193-235, March.
    10. Douglas Cumming & Sofia Johan, 2007. "Advice and monitoring in venture finance," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 21(1), pages 3-43, March.
    11. Da Rin, Marco & Nicodano, Giovanna & Sembenelli, Alessandro, 2006. "Public policy and the creation of active venture capital markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1699-1723, September.
    12. Cumming, Douglas & Johan, Sofia, 2007. "Regulatory harmonization and the development of private equity markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(10), pages 3218-3250, October.
    13. Cumming, Douglas & Fleming, Grant & Suchard, Jo-Ann, 2005. "Venture capitalist value-added activities, fundraising and drawdowns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 295-331, February.
    14. John Armour & Douglas Cumming, 2004. "The Legal Road To Replicating Silicon Valley," Working Papers wp281, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    15. Cumming, Douglas & Johan, Sofia Atiqah binti, 2008. "Preplanned exit strategies in venture capital," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1209-1241, October.
    16. Cumming, Douglas & Schmidt, Daniel & Walz, Uwe, 2004. "Legality and venture governance around the world," CFS Working Paper Series 2004/17, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    17. Andrew Metrick & Ayako Yasuda, 2011. "Venture Capital and Other Private Equity: a Survey," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 17(4), pages 619-654, September.
    18. John Armour & Douglas Cumming, 2006. "The legislative road to Silicon Valley," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(4), pages 596-635, October.
    19. Cumming, Douglas & Fleming, Grant & Schwienbacher, Armin, 2006. "Legality and venture capital exits," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 214-245, January.
    20. Fabrizi, Simona & Lippert, Steffen & Norback, Pehr-Johan & Persson, Lars, 2007. "Venture Capitalists, Asymmetric Information and Ownership in the Innovation Process," MPRA Paper 6265, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Venture capital; Capital gains taxation; Double moral hazard;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:3263. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.