Men are far more likely to start new ventures than women. We argue that one explanation of this gap is that women respond differently to signals of past entrepreneurial success due to the “male hubris, female humility” effect. We argue that as a result women are disproportionately less...

We conducted a follow-up survey of large design, technology, and video games projects that attempted to raise money using crowdfunding before mid-2012. We found that reward-based crowdfunding appears to be able to lead to and support traditional entrepreneurship. A very high percentage (over...

Is employment discrimination driven by consumer bias rather than employer bias? One explanation for the persistence of employment discrimination, despite considerable legal and social pressure, is that unbiased employers are penalized by biased customers. An equitable employer is therefore a...

Scholars have long been interested in the reasons why firms exist, arguing that they have efficiency and productivity benefits over other approaches to organizing. We examine why entrepreneurs often form firms, since entrepreneurial ventures are not large enough to accrue many of the expected...

Our paper tests a key prediction of property rights theory, specifically, that agents will respond to marginal incentives embedded in property rights when making non-contractible, revenue-enhancing investments. (Grossman and Hart, 1986; Hart and Moore, 1990). Using rich project-level data from the...

In this paper, we study competitive response to a product innovation. We consider the dynamic interaction between a “Defender” (a firm with a first generation product) and an “Attacker” (a firm with a second generation product). The second generation product entry decision of the Defender,...

A project funded by the Institute for the Study of Business Markets to develop an understanding of the current state of business-to-business marketing and a research agenda for the field identified a lack of understanding of how the marketing function can or should best contribute to firms’...