We study optimal security design when the issuer and market participants agree to disagree about the characteristics of the asset to be securitized. We show that pooling assets can be optimal because it mitigates the effects of disagreement between issuer and investors, whereas tranching a...

How does uncertainty affect the costs of raising finance in the bond market and via bank loans? Empirically, this paper finds that heightened uncertainty is accompanied by an increase in corporate bond yields and a decrease in bank lending rates. This finding can be explained with a model that...

We use hand-collected data of 20,460 investment decisions and two distinct portals to analyze whether investors in equity crowdfunding direct their investments to local firms. In line with agency theory, the results suggest that investors exhibit a local bias, even when we control for family and...

What role does the selection of an investor and the timing of financing play in initial coin offerings (ICOs)? We investigate the operating and financial performance of ventures conducting ICOs with different types of investors at different points in the ventures' life cycle. We find that,...

This paper investigates the complementarity between business training and access to financial capital for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya. All participants in a business training program are offered training. One-third of participants are offered loans immediately after training...

We develop an algorithm for solving a large class of nonlinear high-dimensional continuous-time models in finance. We approximate value and policy functions using deep learning and show that a combination of automatic differentiation and Ito's lemma allows for the computation of exact...

We analyze gender discrimination in entrepreneurship finance. Access to finance is crucial for entrepreneurial success, yet constraints for women are particularly pronounced. We structurally unpack whether loan officers evaluate business ideas and implementation constraints differently for male...

Most domestic and international firm-to-firm transactions rely on trade credit, where sellers grant buyers time to pay the invoice after delivery. Exploiting Chilean and Colombian transaction-level trade data, this paper documents new facts about trade credit use: trade credit use increases with...

We analyze gender bias in entrepreneurship finance. Access to finance is crucial for entrepreneurial success, yet women are particularly constrained. We structurally unpack whether loan officers evaluate business ideas and implementation constraints differently for male and female entrepreneurs,...

We examine how investor-level tax incentives affect financing for start-ups using the introduction of a generous tax deduction for qualified angel and VC investment in China as a quasi-natural experiment. We find that the tax incentive increases funding for eligible start-ups, with stronger...