Younger entrepreneurs are disadvantaged by traditional loan underwriting, which relies heavily on personal credit scores. With data from three fintech companies, we show that incorporating timely information about ability to repay from business checking account statements particularly improves...

Using a large sample of U.S. small businesses and a new measure of optimism, we examine the role of entrepreneurial optimism in small business lending. We provide evidence that optimistic entrepreneurs are not rationed by lenders. Quite the opposite, our results suggest that they often have...

This book offers a new explanation why venture capital in investments differ substantially between countries. Recent literature has attributed these differences to differences in the financial architecture and tax regulations. By contrast, this book shows by using simulations of a general...