One of the leading theories of entrepreneurship is that less risk averse individuals become entrepreneurs and more risk averse individuals become their employees. Kihlstrom and Laffont (1979) formalized this insight in an elegant and widely taught general equilibrium model. However, their model...

We investigate entry in a dynastic entrepreneurship (overlapping generations) environment created by employee spinoffs. Without finance constraints, enforcement of non-compete agreements unambiguously improves social welfare outcomes, and even increases the rate of spinoffs from original firms....

Motivated by evidence on the importance of incomplete information and networks in international trade, we investigate the supply of 'network intermediation.' We hypothesize that the agents who become international trade intermediaries first accumulate networks of foreign contacts while working...

One informal barrier to international trade is lack ofinformation about international trading opportunities.This informationcan be supplied by export trading companies who have knowledge about buyers andsellers.Employees working in production or sales cultivate networks offoreign contacts;...

Client relationships create value, which employees may try to wrest from their employers by setting up their own firms. If when an employer and worker establish a relationship they cannot contract on the output and profits of the worker's prospective new firm, the employer counters by inducing...

New firms do not yet have employees who can aid recruiting by referrals, but entrepreneurs can recruit workers they know to their startups—in effect making their own referrals. We consider new firms in Brazil’s formal sector founded between 2002 and 2014, for which at least one founding...