I study a model of market-liquidity provision by levered intermediaries that, besides operating trading desks, run deposit-taking franchises. Levered intermediaries’ heightened incentive to absorb risk helps to counteract liquidity-provision frictions that, in an unlevered economy, would lead...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in <I>Management Science</I>. Volume 59 issue 7, pages 1514-1528.<P> This paper reports on a field experiment conducted to estimate the impact of the share of women in business teams on their performance. Teams consisting of undergraduate students in business...</p></i>

We extend Lazear’s theory of skills variety and entrepreneurship in three directions. First, we provide a theoretical framework linking new business creation with an entrepreneur’s skill variety. Second, in this model we allow for both generalists and specialists to possess skill variety....

This paper proposes that risk aversion encourages individuals to invest in balancedskill profiles, making them more likely to become entrepreneurs. By not havingtaken this possible linkage into account, previous research has underestimated the impactsboth of risk aversion and balanced skills on...

Theory predicts that entrepreneurs have distinct attitudes towards risk and uncertainty, but empirical evidence is mixed. To better understand the unique behavioral characteristics of entrepreneurs and the causes of these mixed results, we perform a large ‘lab-in-the-field’ experiment...

There is no robust empirical support for the effect of financial incentives on the decision to work in selfemploymentrather than as a wage earner. In the literature, this is seen as a puzzle. We offer a focus on theopportunity cost, i.e. the wages given up as an employee. Information on income...