This study analyzes the effect of the 2008 financial crisis on the venture capital market. We show that the crisis is associated with a decrease in the number of initial funding rounds as well as with a decrease in the amount of funds raised in later funding rounds. The effects of the crisis...

When a young entrepreneurial firm matures, it is often necessary to replace the founding entrepreneur by a professional manager. This replacement decision can be affected by the private benefits of control enjoyed by the entrepreneur which gives rise to a conflict of interest between the...

When a young entrepreneurial firm matures, it is often necessary to replace the founding entrepreneur by a professional manager. This replacement decision can be affected by the private benefits of control enjoyed by the entrepreneur which gives rise to a conflict of interest between the...

We explore why venture capital funds limit the amount of capital they raise and do not reinvest the proceeds. This structure is puzzling because it leads to a succession of several funds financing each new venture which multiplies the well known agency problems. We argue that an inside investor...

This non-technical contribution to the RWER-Blog deals with the interrelations of market clearing, efficient information processing through the price system, and distribution. The point of entry is a transparent example of Pareto-efficiency taken from the popular book How Markets Fail.

If producers have more information than consumers about goods’ attributes, then they may use non-price (rather than price) adjustment mechanisms and, consequently, the market may reach a new equilibrium even if prices don't change. We study a situation where producers adjust the quantity per...

The paper reviews and assesses our understanding of the notion of “market discipline†in corporate governance. It questions the wholesale appeal to this notion in policy discussion, which fails to provide an account of the underlying mechanisms in terms of theory and empirical...

Increasing evidence shows that ICT investment improves firm performance. Among the many explanations on why ICT contributed to labor productivity surge since 1990, this is the most promising one. It is thus necessary to take the firm as an information processing organization, putting it in...

Research in psychology suggests that some individuals are more sensitive to positive than to negative information while others are more sensitive to negative rather than positive information. I take these cognitive positive-negative asymmetries in information processing to a Bayesian...