We examine the evolution of several key firm economic and financial variables in the years surrounding and during the Great Recession using the Kauffman Firm Survey, a large panel of young firms founded in 2004 and surveyed for eight consecutive years. We find that these young firms experienced...

Little evidence exists on the financing decisions of newly founded firms or on the financing dynamics of these firms over their life cycle. We aim to help filling this gap by investigating the financing dynamics of 2,456 French manufacturing firms founded between 2004 and 2006 through their...

Despite the attention paid by academics to the study of the determinants and growth consequences of entrepreneurs' planning behavior, the convenience of engaging in planning activities is still an open debate in the entrepreneurship literature. In this paper, we analyze how institutional and...

This paper connects the return to entrepreneurship and firm growth decisions in a dynamic investment model with limited access to external financing. When additional assets can effectively relieve financing constraints, the entrepreneur values dollar return more than its face value for firm...

We document the existence of manager-shareholder agency problems caused by excess cash in young firms. Firms receiving quasi-random cash windfalls from the exercise of the overallotment option during their IPO are more likely to make value-destroying acquisitions. We hand-collect executive...

This study examines and compares characteristics, financing patterns, and performance outcomes of women-owned and men-owned young entrepreneurial firms. Using fully imputed data from the Kauffman Firm Surveys of U.S. start-up firms, we first examine the differences in firm and owner...

We analyze the relation between different forms of debt financing at the firm's start-up and subsequent firm outcomes. We distinguish between business debt, obtained in the name of the firm, and personal debt, obtained in the name of the firm's owner and used to finance the start-up firm....

We track firms at birth and compare the growth and responsiveness to demand shocks of IPO firms and their birth-matched counterparts. Firms that are larger at birth with faster initial growth are more likely to go public. Firms in the top percentile of predicted propensity to go public grow 29...