The U.S. entrepreneurial finance market has changed dramatically over the last two decades. Entrepreneurs raising their first round of venture capital retain 30% more equity in their firm and are more likely to control their board of directors. Late-stage startups are raising larger amounts of...

We survey the literature on payout policy, with a particular emphasis on developments in the past two decades. The cross-sectional empirical evidence for the traditional motivations behind firms paying out (agency, signaling, and taxes) is most persuasive with regard to agency considerations....

The Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) exemption allows certain entrepreneurs, their employees, and their investors to sell shares of their companies without paying any—or only greatly reduced—capital gains taxes. Using a diff-in-diff identification strategy, we show that the QSBS...

We analyze the choice between public and private equity financing of a unique, hand-collected sample of privately held firms that have indicated their willingness to raise outside equity.(...)

Many financial markets are characterized by strong relationships and networks, rather than arm's-length, spot-market transactions. We examine the performance consequences of this organizational choice in the context of relationships established when VCs syndicate portfolio company investments,...

We investigate directly whether analyst behavior influenced the likelihood of banks winning underwriting mandates for a sample of 16,456 U.S. debt and equity offerings sold between December 1993 and June 2002.(...)

Shareholder agreements govern the relations among shareholders in privately-held firms, such as joint ventures or venture capital-backed firms. We provide an explanation for the use of put and call options, tag-along rights, drag-along rights, demand rights, piggy-back rights, and catch-up...