External finance is central for nascent entrepreneurs, people in the process of starting new ventures. We argue that nascent entrepreneurs use patents and prototypes in order to signal their ability to appropriate the returns from their innovation as well as the projectś feasibility. Our...

In this paper we look at the effects of bargaining power on the types of entrepreneurial projects chosen by venture capitalists and show that a wealth-constrained venture capitalist prefers to provide equity financing to a two-stage rather than to a similar single-stage project. While the...