The returns that institutional investors realize from private equity investments differ dramatically across institutions. Using detailed and hitherto unexplored records of fund investors and performance, we document large heterogeneity in the performance of different classes of limited partners....

While variations in public securities markets across nations have attracted increasing scrutiny, private financings have received little attention. But in developing nations, the bulk of financings are private ones. This paper analyzes 210 private equity transactions in developing countries. We...

This paper presents a theory of liquidity where we explicitly model the liquidity of the security as a choice variable, which enables the manager raising the funds to screen for "deep pocket" investors, i.e. these that have a low likelihood of a liquidity shock. By choosing the degree of...

This paper investigates the performance of private equity partnerships using a data set of individual fund returns collected by Venture Economics. Over the sample period, average fund returns net of fees approximately equal the S&P 500 although there is a large degree of heterogeneity among fund...

This paper investigates whether and how individual managers affect corporate behavior and performance. We construct a manager-firm matched panel data set which enables us to track the top managers across different firms over time. We find that manager fixed effects matter for a wide range of...

Analyzing 210 developing country private equity investments, we find that transactions vary with nations' legal enforcement, whether measured directly or through legal origin. Investments in high enforcement and common law nations often use convertible preferred stock with covenants. In low...

The returns that institutional investors realize from private equity differ dramatically across institutions. Using detailed, hitherto unexplored records, we document large heterogeneity in the performance of investor classes: endowments' annual returns are nearly 21% greater than average....