Angel investor tax credits are used globally to spur high-growth entrepreneurship. Exploiting the staggered implementation of these tax credits in 31 U.S. states, we find that while they increase angel investment, they have no significant effect on entrepreneurial activity. Tax credits induce...

The effect of financial crises on innovation is an unsettled and important question for economic growth, but one difficult to answer with modern data. Using a differences-in-differences design surrounding the Great Depression, we document that local distress caused by the Depression led to a...

Do private equity firms contribute to financial fragility during economic crises? We find that during the 2008 financial crisis, PE-backed companies increased investments relative to their peers, while also experiencing greater equity and debt inflows. The effects are stronger among financially...

In the context of the European crisis, we show that the security portfolio of banks plays an important role in the propagation of financial shocks across countries. Using Italian loan-level data, we show that the shock to the banks' sovereign portfolio caused by the 2010 Greek bailout was passed...

A central issue in public finance is the tradeoff between maintaining tax revenues and using the tax code to incentivize particular economic activities. One important dimension of this tradeoff is whether incentive policies are used in practice as policymakers intend. This paper examines one...

Angel investor tax credits are used globally to spur high-growth entrepreneurship. Exploiting their staggered implementation in 31 U.S. states, we find that they increase angel investment yet have no significant impact on entrepreneurial activity. Two mechanisms explain these results: Crowding...