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Publications
Publications
Financial Intermediary Relationships and Public Market Access (Forthcoming, Review of Finance 2025)
We provide novel causal evidence on the impact of horizontal relationships between financial intermediaries. Specifically, we study how the exogenous loss of established ties between venture capital firms (VCs) and investment bank underwriters, caused by underwriter mergers and closures, affects a VCs' ability to take portfolio companies public. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we show these disruptions decrease VC IPO exits by 9.5% and reduce fund multiples by 7.8%. These findings highlight the economic significance of relationship-specific capital, particularly human capital, in facilitating access to capital markets and reveal how intermediary networks shape VC performance.
Working Papers
Working Papers
Beyond Fees: Co-Investment and the Design of Private Equity Relationships (2025, Working Paper)
I study why private equity funds offer co-investments, which give LPs discounted access and portfolio choice but impose costs on GPs. Using the Volcker Rule as a shock to LP bargaining power, I find that affected LPs became 159% more likely to co-invest. Simple theory and empirical tests show that bargaining power predicts co-investment, which in turn predicts reinvestment in future funds. LPs subject to higher liquidity risk also co-invest more, consistent with a risk-mitigation advantage to co-investment. Overall, co-investments complement alternative main-fund fee discounts in sharing surplus with important LPs and enhancing welfare for managers, LPs, and private firms.
Do Venture Capital Networks Discourage Investment? (2021 Working Paper)
Network relationships are critical to the investment opportunity sets and outcomes of VC funds. I study whether VC funds are hesitant to make investment decisions that may damage important VC network relationships. I do so by investigating the effect of startup investments by the largest of VC funds on VC finance prospects for same-industry startups, similar in observable characteristics. Quarterly probability of VC finance for these competitor startups decreases by 0.84%, a 15% drop from the pre-event average. Quarterly amount of VC finance drops by about $22,700, a 5% decline from before. I find that bank and SBA loans do not meaningfully change for these firms after the event. The drop in VC finance is stronger among those previously backed by VCs with a syndicate history with the super-large VC. I interpret this evidence as favoring a networks explanation above alternative hypotheses related to lower firm quality.
Capital Gains Taxation and Venture Capital Exit Strategies (2020, Work in progress)
I propose a simple model to study the effect of a change in the capital gains tax rate on the exit decision of a general partner in a venture capital firm from a firm in their investment portfolio. The model investigates a tax-induced agency friction, which restricts a VC general partner’s ability to offset losses elsewhere in their portfolio. Under this framework, I predict that (due to the call-option compensation enjoyed by the otherwise risk-averse GP) the magnitude of downside risk in the IPO will govern the change in the GP’s propensity to choose to exit via IPO.
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