Summer PhD Workshop on Entrepreneurial Finance

Dates: Monday, June 2nd to Friday, June 6th. [Closed] Applications are due January 15th, 2025.

Location: Paris Dauphine University

Co-organizers: Michael Ewens (Columbia Business School and NBER) and Gilles Chemla (Imperial College, CNRS, and CEPR).

Apply Here by January 15th

Description

This week-long workshop roughly follows the structure of the Entrepreneurial Finance Ph.D. course described on this site with several modifications. The inaugural workshop was held in August 2024 at Imperial College (past program here). 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.

Lectures will be lead by Michael Ewens (Columbia), Gilles Chemla (Imperial College, CNRS, and CEPR), and Jessica Jeffers (HEC).

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 faculty local to Paris leading the remaining sessions.

Program / Schedule

For Mike’s sessions, the complete reading lists can be found here.

Monday, June 2nd

9:00 am – 10:30 am [Lecture 1, Mike]: Workshop intro and the entrepreneurial firm

Hurst, Erik, and Benjamin Wild Pugsley. “What Do Small Businesses Do?.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2011.2 (2011): 73-118.

Levine, R., & Rubinstein, Y. (2017). Smart and illicit: who becomes an entrepreneur and do they earn more?. The Quarterly journal of economics, 132(2), 963-1018. Break

11:00 am-12:30 pm [Lecture 2, Mike]: Idea pairing meet-greet and institutional details

We will randomly pair students together to introduce themselves and a current research project (5 minutes each pair, repeat 3 times)

Lunch: 12:30-2:00 pm (individual)

2:00-3:30 pm [Lecture 3, Mike]: Financing constraints overview

Cagetti, Marco, and Mariacristina De Nardi. “Entrepreneurship, frictions, and wealth.” Journal of Political Economy 114.5 (2006): 835-870.

Hombert, J., Schoar, A., Sraer, D., & Thesmar, D. (2020). Can unemployment insurance spur entrepreneurial activity? Evidence from France. The Journal of Finance, 75(3), 1247-1285.

Break: Volunteers for student idea pitch sessions (post to Basecamp)

3:45-5:00 pm [Lecture 4, Mike]: Housing and banks

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.

Greenstone, M., Mas, A. and Nguyen, H.-L. (2020) ‘Do Credit Market Shocks Affect the Real Economy? Quasi-experimental Evidence from the Great Recession and “Normal” Economic Times’, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 12(1), pp. 200–225.

Schmalz, M.C., Sraer, D.A. and Thesmar, D. (2017) ‘Housing Collateral and Entrepreneurship’, The Journal of Finance, 72(1), pp. 99–132.

Tuesday, June 3rd

9:00 am-10:30 am [Lecture 5, Jessica]: Entrepreneurship as a labor path

Readings:

Gompers, Paul, Josh Lerner, and David Scharfstein. “Entrepreneurial spawning: Public corporations and the genesis of new ventures, 1986 to 1999.” The journal of Finance 60.2 (2005): 577-614.
Azoulay, Pierre, Benjamin F. Jones, J. Daniel Kim, and Javier Miranda. 2020. “Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship.” American Economic Review: Insights 2 (1): 65–82.
Lafontaine, Francine, and Kathryn Shaw. “Serial entrepreneurship: Learning by doing?” Journal of Labor Economics 34.S2 (2016): S217-S254.

Optional:

Amornsiripanitch, Natee, et al. Failing Just Fine: Assessing Careers of Venture Capital-backed Entrepreneurs Via a Non-Wage Measure. No. w30179. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2022.
Starr, Evan, Natarajan Balasubramanian, and Mariko Sakakibara. “Screening spinouts? How noncompete enforceability affects the creation, growth, and survival of new firms.” Management Science 64.2 (2018): 552-572.
Babina, Tania. “Destructive creation at work: How financial distress spurs entrepreneurship.” The Review of Financial Studies 33.9 (2020): 4061-4101.
Hacamo, Isaac, and Kristoph Kleiner. “Forced entrepreneurs.” The Journal of Finance 77.1 (2022): 49-83.

Break

11:00 am-12:30 pm [Student pitch session 1, Jessica]: 15 minutes each, 10 min + 5 minutes feedback from faculty. 8 students

Students:

Samia Alam
Thomas Cauthorn
Andy Li
Yasmine Nosair

Lunch: 12:30-2 pm (individual)

2:00-3:30 pm [Lecture 6, Mike]: Financial intermediaries

Bernstein, S. et al. (2022) ‘Do Startups Benefit from Their Investors’ Reputation? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment’.

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.

Hsu, D. H. (2004). What do entrepreneurs pay for venture capital affiliation?. The journal of finance, 59(4), 1805-1844.

Break

3:45-5:00 pm [Lecture 7, Mike]: Institutional details session

Wednesday, June 4th

9:00 am – 10:30 am [Lecture 8, Gilles]: Crowdfunding

Belleamme, 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.

Break

11:00 am – 12:30 pm [Lecture 9, Gilles]: Digital assets, financial services, and entrepreneurial finance

Cong, L. W., Li, Y., & Wang, N. (2021). Tokenomics: Dynamic adoption and valuation. The Review of Financial Studies, 34(3), 1105-1155.

Lunch 12:30-2:00 pm (individual)

2:00 pm – 3:15 pm [Student pitch session 2, Gilles and Mike]: 15 minutes each, 10 min + 5 minutes from faculty.

Students:

Zhiming Zhu
Danfeng YUE
Francesco Giordano
Bastian Koch
Yifan (Freda) Fang

Break

3:45 pm – 5:00 pm [Lecture 10, Mike]: Contracts

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.

Group dinner: 7:00pm

Thursday, June 5th

9:00 am-10:30 am [Lecture 11, Gilles]: Experience, AI, and entrepreneurial finance.

Bonelli, M. (2025). Data-driven investors.

Fernández Tamayo, B., Braun, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F., Phalippou, L., & Sigrist, N. (2023). Limited Partners versus Unlimited Machines; Artificial Intelligence and the Performance of Private Equity Funds. Artificial Intelligence and the Performance of Private Equity Funds (December 15, 2023).

Genc, C. (2023). Exploring the success of second-time entrepreneurs.

Lyonnet, V., & Stern, L. H. (2025). Machine Learning About Venture Capital Choices.

10:30 am – 12:00 pm [Lecture 12, Gilles]: Identification issues in entrepreneurial finance research

Banerjee, A., & Deaton A. (2012). Searching for answers with Randomized Controlled Trials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Js-AxZcmr8

Bowen III, D. E., Frésard, L., & Taillard, J. P. (2017). What’s your identification strategy? Innovation in corporate finance research. Management Science, 63(8), 2529-2548.

Chemla, G., & Hennessy, C. A. (2020). Rational expectations and the paradox of policy-relevant natural experiments. Journal of Monetary Economics, 114, 368-381.

Hennessy, C. A., & Chemla, G. (2022). Signaling, instrumentation, and CFO decision-making. Journal of Financial Economics, 144(3), 849-863.

Break

Lunch 12:30-2:00 pm (individual)

2:00 pm – 3:30 pm [Lecture 13, Mike]: Referee report discussion

Break

3:45-5:00 pm [Lecture 13, Mike]: Entrepreneurship and innovation datasets

Informal group dinner: 6:30-8:30 pm

Friday, June 6th

9-11:30 am [Lecture 14, Mike]: Gender and race in entrepreneurial finance, where is the field going, and course wrap-up.

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.

Workshop end

See the 2024 program for a preview of the format and content.

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

June 2nd (starts at 9 am) to June 6th (12:00 pm)

Location

Paris Dauphine University

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 January 15th, 2025 at 12 pm EDT.

How to apply: Interested students should complete this application form, 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 February 1, 2025. Registration fees are due by April 15th ($400 is non-refundable due to program fixed costs).

Questions and contact

Is this affiliated with Columbia University, Imperial College, or Paris Dauphine University?
- 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 (see here for last year’s list).
Where is the application form?
- Here is the application.
Will there be a remote or Zoom option?
- No
How are visas handled?
- We have a form letter to facilitate any visa issues.
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).

If you have any questions about the summer school, please contact Prof. Mike Ewens.