We conduct a randomized field experiment (RFE) to assess whether startup firms perceive accounting expertise as an important investor credential. We send 13,358 unsolicited and unique emails to active startup firms across the US, showing an interest in them with a proposition to meet a bogus...

Prior research shows that the accounting and financial reporting quality of startups and early-stage firms is lower than that of public firms and firms later in their life-cycle. A growing source of financing for these startup and early-stage firms is equity crowdfunding. This paper provides...

I study the relation between venture capitalists' (VCs) presence and real activities manipulation (RM). I find that compared to non-venture-backed companies, venture-backed companies show significantly less RM in the first post-IPO fiscal year. The results are robust after controlling for the VC...

We employ a sharp regression discontinuity design to identify the causal effects of investor base disclosure on funding success and post-funding outcomes. Starting from February 2016, Kickstarter discloses backer statistics including geographic locations and previous funding experience of the...

We study how venture capital firms (VCs), one major capital provider for early-stage entrepreneurial companies, respond to narcissistic entrepreneurs. VCs prefer to invest in companies with narcissistic entrepreneurs. Conditional on making an investment, VCs are more likely to impose contingent...

This study provides evidence of significant biases in multi-year management forecasts by analyzing a proprietary dataset on venture-backed start-ups in Germany. We find that revenues and expenses are highly overestimated in each of the investigated one- to five-year-ahead planning periods....

We investigate the career dynamics of high-tech entrepreneurs by analyzing the exit choice of entrepreneurs: to found another firm, to become dependently employed, or to act as a business angel. Our detailed data resting on the CrunchBase online database indicate that founders stick with...

We investigate the career dynamics of high-tech entrepreneurs by analyzing the exit choice of entrepreneurs: to act as a business angel, to found another firm, or to become dependently employed. Our detailed data from CrunchBase indicate that founders are more likely to stick with...

A model of start-up finance with double moral hazard is proposed. Entrepreneurs have ideas but lack own resources as well as commercial experience. Venture capitalists provide start-up finance and managerial support. Both types of agents thus jointly contribute to the firm s success, but neither...

Entrepreneurship is essential to job creation and to productivity growth and therefore is an important matter for government policy. However, policymakers face a difficult challenge because successful growth for a few firms-which cannot easily be identified in advance-is accompanied by...