Innovating Finance for Social Impact

Funded Research Proposal

The need for impact measurement harmonization is a common refrain among impact investors. However, instituting standards and common frameworks requires an awareness of the constraints under which impact investors operate in their day-to-day work.Read More

Does Crowdfunding Benefit Entrepreneurs and Venture Capital Investors?

Published Research

We study how a new development in entrepreneurship—crowdfunding—interacts with more traditional financing sources, such as venture capital (VC) and bank financing. Read More

Economics of Leveraged Buyouts: Theory and Evidence from the UK Private Equity Industry

Working Papers

Empirical analysis of a sample of companies with private equity (PE) ownership in the UK shows that PE firms act as deep-pocket investors for their portfolio companies, rescuing them if they fall in financial distress.Read More

Initial Coin Offerings, Speculators, and Asset Tokenization

Working Papers

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are an emerging form of fundraising for blockchain-based startups. We examine how ICOs can be leveraged in the context of asset tokenization, whereby firms issue tokens backed by future assets (i.e., inventory) to finance growth.Read More

Big Pushes, Little Hollywoods: Local Economic Development Effects of Film Tax Credit Lotteries

Working Papers

The extent to which local incentive policies (such as subsidies and tax credits) are effective at spurring new centers of innovation, and whether these incentives induce overall productivity growth or just a shift of production from one region to another, is the subject of this proposal.Read More

Mastering Innovation in Financial Services: How Fintech is Changing the Game for Wells Fargo

Ryan Miller discusses innovation in financial services

The financial services industry is increasingly seeing new technologies arise, from mobile banking to Bitcoin and blockchain technology. On the debut episode of Mastering Innovation, we asked Ryan Miller to share how Wells Fargo fosters a culture of innovation to keep up with these changes.Read More

Organizational Decision-Making and Information: Angel Investments by Venture Capital Partners

Working Papers

We study information aggregation in organizational decision-making for the financing of entrepreneurial ventures. We introduce a formal model of voting where agents face costly tacit information to improve their decision quality.Read More

Corporate Venture Capital and the Returns to Acquiring Portfolio Companies

Published Research

A prominent motive for corporate venture capital (CVC) is the identification of entrepreneurial-firm acquisition opportunities. Consistent with this view, we find that one of every five startups purchased by 61 top corporate investors from 1987 through 2003 is a venture portfolio company of its acquirer.Read More