We study the role of homophily in group formation. Using a unique dataset of MBA students, we observe homophily in ethnicity and gender increases the probability of forming teams by 25%. Homophily in education and past working experience increases the probability of forming teams by 17% and 11%...

We use employer-employee linked data to track the employment histories of team members prior to startup formation for a full cohort of new firms in the U.S. Using pre-startup industry experience to measure skillsets, we find that startups that have founding teams with more diverse collective...