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This paper reviews the literature concerning the impact that venture capital investments have on economic growth, mainly focusing on the firm level. The authors consider new insights gained in the 1990s as well as North American and European practices. The authors provide an overview of recent explanations for the existence of venture capital and explore the impact of formal venture capitalists on growth and thus exclude informal or private investors. The authors summarize trends in venture capital in the United States and Europe, stressing the impact of government initiatives on macroeconomic growth. The authors conclude with theoretical progress made in venture capital research and offer suggestions for paths to take in the future.

This paper presents a methodology for evaluating the impact of public policies to assist the small business sector. The author reviews the various methodological approaches to evaluating small business support policies in developed economies. An analytical framework with six approaches is provided, beginning with the most simple and ending with the most sophisticated. These six steps include (1) take-up of schemes, (2) recipients' opinions, (3) recipients' views of the difference made by the assistance, (4) comparison of the performance of "assisted" with "typical" firms, (5) comparison with match firms, and (6) taking account of selection bias. Steps 1 to 3 are considered monitoring, with Steps 4 to 6 being evaluation. The difference between the two is that evaluations are attempts, demonstrating analytical rigor, to determine the impact of the policy initiatives. Monitoring either documents activity under the program or reports participants' perception of the value of the scheme.

This paper explores the conditions of entrepreneurship in European countries in transition. According to the author, these countries show different stages of development in their transition toward a market economy. The first group of countries in transition started negotiations with the European Union (EU) in 1998 and is considered the most advanced: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. The second group of countries, considered to be in an intermediate stage of transition, is made up of Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovakia. The third group consists of the countries of the former Yugoslav Federation, which have experienced long separatist wars: Bosnia, Yugoslavia, and Macedonia. A fourth group of countries in transition consists of former members of the Soviet Union: Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Moldavia, and the Ukraine. The author aims to provide insight into the social and economic situation in the areas under consideration. The author also explores how entrepreneurship research has developed in the European countries in transition so far, what crucial factors influence the behavior of people and subsequently the development of entrepreneurial activities in the process of transformation, which stage of economic development have already been achieved by these countries, and what can be learned from data such as start-up, growth and failure rates about the dynamics of entrepreneurship in these countries?

This paper explores what small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) policy is about, how it is pursued in Europe, and the differences between the European countries. According to the author, the overall objectives of SME policy are to create employment, foster economic growth, improve competitiveness, and regional/structural development. The SME-related policy pursued in most European countries involves a collection of various objectives and fields of economic policy rather than a conceptual framework. The author discusses the various approaches of SME policy that take place in the following European countries: Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, and Belgium. The author also discusses the variation of instruments used in the following fields of SME policy: start-ups, finance, exports and internationalization, information, research and development, labor, and red tape.