Open Access

Weder junge noch alte Firmen sind jeweils homogen. Die wichtigste Entdeckung in mikroökonometrischen Studien ist und bleibt – mit den Worten von James Heckman (2001, p. 674) in seiner Nobelpreis-Rede – „the evidence on the pervasiveness of heterogeneity and diversity in economic life.“ Brown, Hamilton und Medoff (1990, 91) beendeten ihr Buch zu großen und kleinen Firmen mit der Bemerkung: „Sentiment aside, the results of our research suggest a clear message for policies affecting large and small firms: do not judge employers by their size alone.“ Dies gilt hier entsprechend für junge und alte Firmen – auch die dürfen nicht allein nach ihrem Alter beurteilt werden.

The paper presents first results and ideas from an ongoing project dealing with the construction of a private closed-end fund for the municipal area of Hannover, Germany. It is argued that for assessing the economic prospects of the project it is helpful to apply a Monte Carlo (MC) simulation approach. Thereby, it is possible to account for contamination risks. Questions that must be solved are (1) to find probability distributions for the uncertain variables and the correlations among these, (2) to adequately integrate legal and political parameters. Despite its merits with regard to accounting for contamination risks in investment appraisal a MC simulation may not be useful for every kind of risk. Integrating legal and political factors using a solely stochastic approach appears not to be convincing, since this kind of uncertainty results from the strategic interaction of agents. Therefore, the potential value of using game theory and institutional analysis is stressed.