The valuation of start-up firms is challenging, yet highly relevant for entrepreneurs and financiers alike. We reverse-engineer fair-value multiples by comparing the firm value at the time of financing with the firm value at the time of exit. Our framework produces reliable valuation multiples...

Prior research suggests that the disclosure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—a primary cause of climate change—affects firm valuation. In this paper, we provide new insights into the determinants of the voluntary disclosure of GHG emissions. We show that board ancestral diversity has a...

What role does the selection of an investor and the timing of financing play in initial coin offerings (ICOs)? We investigate the operating and financial performance of ventures conducting ICOs with different types of investors at different points in the ventures' life cycle. We find that,...

Crypto funds (CFs) are a growing intermediary in cryptocurrency markets. We evaluate CF performance using metrics based on alphas, value at risk, lower partial moments, and maximum drawdown. The performance of actively managed CFs is heterogenous: While the average fund in our sample does not...

We document high economy-wide correlations between the Equity Risk Premium (ERP) and the aggregate volume (rho=-0.69) and value (rho=-0.75) of patenting activity by public firms in the United States over the 1977-2018 period, contradicting Schumpeter's (1939) opportunity-costs hypothesis of...

Schumpeterian arguments of “creative destruction” predict that innovation is countercyclical. However, empirical findings demonstrate the contrary. We apply corporate finance principles to macro- and innovation economics and propose a “hurdle-rate theory of inventive procyclicality”....

What role does the selection of an investor and the timing of financing play in initial coin offerings (ICOs)? We investigate the operating and financial performance of ventures conducting ICOs with different types of investors at different points in the ventures’ life cycle. We find that,...