Do entrepreneurs consider the risk of their business equity when making investment portfolio allocations? Many people compartmentalize different risks and consider them separately, called mental accounting. Alternatively, the risk substitution hypothesis suggests that entrepreneurs would offset...

This paper suggests a solution to what has become known as the "private equity premium puzzle" (Moskowitz and Vissing-Jorgensen (2002)). We interpret occupational choice as a dynamic portfolio choice problem of a life-cycle investor facing a liquidity constraint and imperfect information about...