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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 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?