Who Finances Startups in the USA? A Comprehensive Study of Informal Investors, 1999-2003
10 Pages Posted: 1 Mar 2011
Date Written: 2006
Abstract
We examine the informal investment1 in the U.S.A. during the period 1999-2003. We develop models that correlate informal investment with income, net worth, age, education level, gender, whether or not an investor is also an entrepreneur, and residency of the investor (e.g., rural versus urban). The dependent variables are (1) Whether or not a person is an informal investor, and (2) Amount of informal capital an individual invests per year. The data set comprises 22,292 household interviews from the annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) study in the U.S.A. over the period 1999 and 2003. We believe our findings are useful for entrepreneurs looking for informal investment; policy makers seeking to stimulate informal investment; and professionals such as accountants, lawyers, financial advisors, and educators dealing with entrepreneurs and informal investors.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship
JEL Classification: M13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Nascent Entrepreneurship: Empirical Studies and Developments
-
Teams that Work Together, Stay Together: Resiliency of Entrepreneurial Teams
By Phillip H. Kim and Howard E. Aldrich
-
Allocation and Productivity of Time in New Ventures of Female and Male Entrepreneurs
By I. Verheul, Martin A. Carree, ...
-
By Karl Wennberg, Johan Wiklund, ...
-
By Brett R. Smith, Charles H. Matthews, ...
-
The Discovery Process: External Influences on Refinement of the Venture Idea
By Per Davidsson, Erik Hunter, ...
-
By Karin Hellerstedt, Howard E. Aldrich, ...
-
Team Heterogeneity in Startups and its Development Over Time
By Ulrich Kaiser and Bettina Mueller
-
Team Heterogeneity in Startups and its Development Over Time
By Ulrich Kaiser and Bettina Mueller
-
Encountered Problems and Outcome Status in Nascent Entrepreneurship
By Marco Van Gelderen, Pankaj Patel, ...