Summer PhD Workshop on Entrepreneurial Finance
Dates: Tuesday, August 27th – Saturday, August 31st, 2024. Applications are due April 30th (closed for 2024; see below).
Location: Imperial College London
Co-organizers: Michael Ewens (Columbia Business School), Gilles Chemla (Imperial) and Ramana Nanda (Imperial).
Description
This week-long workshop roughly follows the structure of the Entrepreneurial Finance Ph.D. course described on this site with several modifications. We will cover the major topics from the 6-week in-person course and highlight key institutional details required for successful entrepreneurial finance research. Several sessions will focus on the “how” of research, key databases used in the field, opportunities to present new ideas, and live examples of some data analysis in recent work. Students will have ample opportunities to interact with their peers and the participating faculty. Importantly, this workshop is not a substitute for the invaluable NBER Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, which provides a rigorous education in the broad entrepreneurship area in a fantastic environment (the NBER Summer Institute). This workshop provides in-depth coverage of entrepreneurial finance topics in some bootcamp sessions.
Goals and teaching objectives
Few universities have courses dedicated to entrepreneurial finance, while the opportunities for research and job opportunities are growing. Motivated by this, the workshop aims to provide an overview of modern research in entrepreneurial finance and provide the foundation for success in producing research: mastering institutional details. These include definitions, industry norms, regulations (history of changes), laws, databases, disclosure rules, and more. There is a hidden “literature” of these institutional details in all major empirical work. This course presents a literature review for these details while teaching entrepreneurial finance.
Target students
Students past their second year of the Ph.D. program in economics, finance, strategy, management, or related fields are welcome to apply. Applicants from outside top schools with faculty active in the entrepreneurial finance area and those outside the U.S. will be given preference.
Schedule
Each day includes approximately 6 hours of class sessions (lectures, student presentations, etc), lunch (sometimes group, otherwise independent), and two group dinners (Tuesday and Friday).
Mike Ewens will lead most of the sessions, with Gilles Chemla and Ramana Nanda leading the remaining sessions.
Tuesday the 27th
Required readings
Cagetti, Marco, and Mariacristina De Nardi. “Entrepreneurship, frictions, and wealth.” Journal of Political Economy 114.5 (2006): 835-870.
Hurst, E. and Pugsley, B.W. (2011) ‘What Do Small Businesses Do?’
Gompers, Paul A., Will Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan, and Ilya A. Strebulaev. “How do venture capitalists make decisions?.” Journal of Financial Economics 135, no. 1 (2020): 169-190.
Hurst, Erik, and Annamaria Lusardi. “Liquidity constraints, household wealth, and entrepreneurship.” Journal of political Economy 112.2 (2004): 319-347.
Levine, R. and Rubinstein, Y. (2017) ‘Smart and Illicit: Who Becomes an Entrepreneur and Do They Earn More?’,
Suggested readings
See the reading lists here and here.
9:00 am – 10:30 am [Lecture 1, Mike]: Workshop intro and the entrepreneurial firm
- Goals of the workshop
- Student expectations
- Preview of institutional details
- The founding and entry decision
Break
11:00 am-12:30 pm [Lecture 2, Mike]: Institutional details session
Lunch: 12:30-2:00 pm (individual)
2:00-3:30 pm [Lecture 3, Mike]: Financing constraints overview
Break: Volunteers for student idea pitch sessions (send email to Mike)
3:45-5:00 pm [Lecture 4, Mike]: Financial intermediaries
Group dinner: 6:30-8:30 pm, Hux American Brasserie
Wednesday the 28th
Required readings
Berger, A. N., Miller, N. H., Petersen, M. A., Rajan, R. G., & Stein, J. C. (2005). Does function follow organizational form? Evidence from the lending practices of large and small banks. Journal of Financial Economics, 76(2), 237-269.
Evans, D. S., & Jovanovic, B. (1989). An estimated model of entrepreneurial choice under liquidity constraints. Journal of political economy, 97(4), 808-827.
Schmalz, M. C., Sraer, D. A., & Thesmar, D. (2017). Housing collateral and entrepreneurship. The Journal of Finance, 72(1), 99-132.
Jensen, T. L., Leth-Petersen, S., & Nanda, R. (2022). Financing constraints, home equity and selection into entrepreneurship. Journal of Financial Economics, 145(2), 318-337.
Petersen, M.A. and Rajan, R.G. (2002) ‘Does Distance Still Matter? The Information Revolution in Small Business Lending’, The Journal of Finance, 57(6), pp. 2533–2570.
Suggested readings
Adelino, M., Schoar, A., & Severino, F. (2015). House prices, collateral, and self-employment. Journal of Financial Economics, 117(2), 288-306.
Kerr, S. P., Kerr, W. R., & Nanda, R. (2022). House prices, home equity, and entrepreneurship: Evidence from US census micro data. Journal of Monetary Economics, 130, 103-119.
9:00 am-10:30 am [Lecture 5, Ramana]: Entrepreneur wealth, collateral, and selection into entrepreneurship
Break
11:00 am-12:30 pm [Student pitch session 1]: 15 minutes each, 10 min + 5 minutes feedback from faculty. 8 students
Lunch: 12:30-2 pm (individual)
2:00-3:30 pm [Lecture 6, Ramana]: The role of bank finance for SMEs and firm dynamics
Break
3:45-5:00 pm [Lecture 7, Mike]: Institutional details session
Thursday the 29th
Required readings
Kaplan, S.N. and Strömberg, P. (2004) ‘Characteristics, Contracts, and Actions: Evidence from Venture Capitalist Analyses’, The Journal of Finance, 59(5), pp. 2177–2210.
Robb, A.M. and Robinson, D.T. (2014) ‘The Capital Structure Decisions of New Firms’, The Review of Financial Studies, 27(1), pp. 153–179.
Belle amme, P., Lambert, T., and A. Schwienbacher, 2014, “Crowdfunding: Tapping the Right Crowd”, Journal of Business Venturing, 29, 585(609).
Brown, D. C., & Davies, S. W. (2020). Financing efficiency of securities-based crowdfunding. The Review of Financial Studies, 33(9), 3975-4023.
Chemla, G., & Tinn, K. (2020). Learning through crowdfunding. Management Science, 66(5), 1783-1801.
Cong, L. W., Li, Y., & Wang, N. (2021). Tokenomics: Dynamic adoption and valuation. The Review of Financial Studies, 34(3), 1105-1155.
Suggested readings
See the reading list here.
9:00 am – 10:30 am [Lecture 8, Gilles]: Crowdfunding
Break
11:00 am -12:30 pm [Student pitch session 2]: 15 minutes each, 10 min + 5 minutes from faculty. 8 students
Lunch 12:30-2:00 pm (individual)
2:00 pm-3:30 pm [Lecture 9, Gilles]: Digital assets, financial services, and entrepreneurial finance
Break
3:45 pm – 5:00 pm [Lecture 10, Mike]: Capital structure and contracts
Friday the 30th
Required readings
Bergemann, D., & Hege, U. (2005). The financing of innovation: Learning and stopping. RAND Journal of Economics, 719-752.
Ewens, M., Nanda, R., & Rhodes-Kropf, M. (2018). Cost of experimentation and the evolution of venture capital. Journal of Financial Economics, 128(3), 422-442.
Bonelli, M. (2022). The adoption of artificial intelligence by venture capitalists. Available at SSRN4362173.
Cahn, C., Girotti, M., & Landier, A. (2021). Entrepreneurship and information on past failures: A natural experiment. Journal of Financial economics, 141(1), 102-121.
Genc, C., On the stigma of failure for behavioral entrepreneurs, mimeo.
Genc, C., Exploring the Success of Second-Time Entrepreneurs, mimeo
Lyonnet, V., & Stern, L. H. (2022). Venture capital (mis) allocation in the age of AI. Fisher College of Business Working Paper, (2022-03), 002.
Suggested readings
Kerr, W. R., Nanda, R., & Rhodes-Kropf, M. (2014). Entrepreneurship as experimentation. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28(3), 25-48.
9-10:30 am [Lecture 11, Mike]: Referee report discussion
Break
11:00 am-12:30 pm [Lecture 12, Gilles]: Business data, machine learning, and entrepreneurial finance
Lunch 12:30-2:00 pm (individual)
2:00 -3:30 pm [Lecture, Ramana]: Learning and experimentation in VC and entrepreneurial finance
Break
3:45-5:00 pm [Lecture 13, Mike]: Entrepreneurship and innovation datasets
Final group dinner: 6:30-8:30 pm
Saturday the 31st (half-day)
Required readings
Ewens, M. (2023). Gender and race in entrepreneurial finance. Handbook of the Economics of Corporate Finance: Private Equity and Entrepreneurial Finance, 239.
Bohren, J. Aislinn, Alex Imas, and Michael Rosenberg. “The dynamics of discrimination: Theory and evidence.” American economic review 109, no. 10 (2019): 3395-3436.
Suggested readings
See suggested readings from Mike’s NBER BootCamp lecture.
9-10:30 am [Lecture 14, Mike]: Gender and race in entrepreneurial finance
Break
11-12:30 [Lecture 15, Mike]: Research methods, course wrap-up, big questions, etc.
Workshop end
Student expectations and deliverables
Students are expected to attend all sessions and are encouraged to participate. Each student will submit a short research proposal by the end of the week that the faculty team will provide comments on after the course.
Dates
August 27th (starts 9 am) to August 31st (12:30 pm)
Location
Imperial College London
Admission and costs
Who should apply: Students are expected to be in their PhD’s third, fourth, or fifth year, having completed the basic core economics and/or finance classes.
When to apply: Applications close on April 30th and 12 pm EDT (application window closed for 2024).
How to apply: Interested students should complete this application form (closed for 2024), which requires basic biographical information, a short cover letter, a resume, and two short reference emails (the survey has the information).
Cost: $800, which covers administrative costs and group meals. Students must secure their accommodation (options will be available to admitted students).
When do we decide?: Admission decisions will be made by May 15, 2024. Registration fees are due by June 1st ($400 is non-refundable due program fixed costs).
Questions and contact
- Is this affiliated with Columbia University or Imperial College?
- No, the course has no connection to either university and is an independently run workshop by the participating faculty.
- Will there be credit or a certificate for completing the course?
- No, but the students who complete the course will be listed on the course website
- Where is the application form?
- Will there be a remote or Zoom option?
- No
- Is this affiliated with Imperial or any other university?
- No, this is an independent initiative by Mike Ewens in coordination with WEFI and partner faculty.
- What if I cannot make it this year?
- If this year is successful, we plan to organize this workshop every summer in Europe with a different academic institution each year (likely in June in the longer run).
- Some other question…
- Great question! This is an experiment of sorts built off of an existing PhD course. We are learning a bit as we go.
If you have any questions about the summer school, please contact Prof. Mike Ewens.