January 28, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
January 28, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Embedded Files
Larisa Cioaca (Tulane University) - will present “The Private Value of Innovating for the Government.” (with Ashish Arora, Sharon Belenzon, and Elia Ferracuti)
Abstract: We quantify the private returns to government R&D contracts awarded to firms. We present new evidence that R&D contracts not only finance innovation but also embed an implicit government guarantee of noncompetitive future procurement for the winning R&D contractor. We measure its private value by analyzing stock market reactions to news about R&D contract awards. Using all federal R&D contracts awarded to U.S. publicly traded firms from 1984 through 2015, we find that the average private return on an R&D contract is 19 times its maximum potential revenue. However, returns are highly skewed, with only 7.5% of firms receiving at least one top-quartile contract. Private returns are linked to future production contracts, but only for noncompetitive awards to vertically integrated or large firms. These results suggest that a procurement regime bundling R&D and production contracts enhances value for firms with production capability. We develop a conceptual framework to clarify this innovation policy lever.
February 4, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
February 4, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Jue (Kate) Wang (Penn State University) - will present “Anchoring Risk in the Participatory Regulation Process: How Engaging Risk-Bearing Stakeholders Shapes Lobbying Effectiveness”
Abstract: Firms seeking favorable regulations for new technologies have traditionally built political support by emphasizing benefits and mobilizing stakeholders who stand to gain, which is a strategy that proved effective when regulators relied primarily on expert input and closed-door lobbying. As regulatory processes become more participatory, however, risk-bearing stakeholders gain direct access to regulators and shape problem definitions, such that benefit-focused lobbying becomes insufficient when firms cannot credibly address the risks these stakeholders foreground. Drawing on research in the social construction of technology and problem definition in policy making, this paper theorizes that firms can sustain regulatory influence in participatory settings by stabilizing early problem definitions around stakeholder-defined risks that their technologies can credibly address. By anchoring regulatory discourse to these risks, firms establish evaluative reference points that shape how regulators assess subsequent policy proposals, with anchoring proving most effective when firms possess strong reputational legitimacy and closely align with risk-bearing stakeholder framings. Evidence from drone firms’ regulatory narratives during FAA rulemaking (2014-2020) supports this framework. The findings show how participatory regulation reshapes political influence by shifting firms’ nonmarket strategies from benefit-focused advocacy toward early-stage problem definition centered on risk-bearing stakeholders.
February 18, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
February 18, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Jay Habegger (University of Maryland) - will present. "Searching for Schumpeter beyond Sand Hill Road: Estimating Innovation Ventures uising Multiple Systems Estimation."
Abstract: Innovative ventures that drive Creative Destruction are central to economic growth, yet identifying them ex ante—before success is observed—remains a core challenge in entrepreneurship research. Existing approaches rely either on ex post revealed growth outcomes or on proxies for entrepreneurial intent, but both struggle with a fundamental non-complier problem: innovative ventures that intend to innovate but do not, and ventures that do not intend to innovate yet do so nonetheless. This study proposes an alternative perspective: ventures at risk of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship are revealed not by outcomes or intent, but by securing an initial equity investment—although not necessarily from VCs. Combining this insight with capture–recapture, a method frequently used in biology and epidemiology, the paper leverages systematic differences in coverage across commercial VC databases to estimate the size of the otherwise hidden population of initial equity investments from 2009–2020. The results show that existing VC databases undercount initial equity investments by a factor of four, particularly missing smaller, geographically dispersed companies. Contrary to prevailing views, innovative ventures appear to be an increasing share of young firms. These findings challenge how scholars and policymakers assess entrepreneurial dynamism and suggest that the stock of innovative ventures is both broader and more geographically diffuse than commonly assumed.
March 11, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
March 11, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Anna Lamin (Northeastern University) - will present - "How Technological Shifts Affect Co-location Decisions: Evidence from the Bangalore Software Industry"
Abstract: Emerging technologies often reshape industry dynamics, prompting some organizations to adapt while others continue operating within established structures. In this study, we examine how such technological shifts influence the location choices of new entrants. Building on research in agglomeration and technological change, we show that before the introduction of a major technological upgrade, new entrants tended to locate in areas populated by firms organized around long-standing industry practices. Following the introduction of the new technology, however, this pattern weakened, suggesting a reorientation in the factors guiding entry decisions. To investigate this empirically, we combine detailed data on the Indian software industry in Bangalore with information on H‑1B visa usage, which allows us to identify domestic firms engaged in large‑scale outsourcing activity. Our findings indicate that, prior to the rollout of 3G wireless spectrum, locations with a high concentration of such firms were particularly attractive to new entrants. After the technological shift, this locational pull declined significantly. Overall, the study highlights how technological transitions can alter the spatial logic of industry evolution, shaping agglomeration patterns and influencing where new firms choose to establish themselves.
March 25, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
March 25, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Mahka Moeen (University of Wisconsin) - will present - title forthcoming
April 8, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
April 8, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Sukhun Kang (University of California Santa Barbara) - will present "Data Privacy Regulation and Innovation" (with Jennifer Kao, UCLA).
This paper examines how data privacy regulations shape innovation. While data privacy regulations are designed to increase data security, they also introduce compliance costs and coordination challenges in settings where collecting, analyzing, and sharing sensitive data is central to innovation. We examine the effect of the European Union (EU)’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the largest data privacy law to date, on the pharmaceutical industry. We find that a significant decline in clinical trial activity among firms more exposed to the reform. Firms reduced both the scale and scope of their trials, enrolling fewer patients, targeting fewer diseases, and operating across fewer sites. While collaborative activity declined overall, we provide evidence that firms adapted by shifting toward existing (rather than new) research collaborators. These findings highlight how data privacy regulations can shape not only the rate of R&D, but also the composition of firms’ R&D activities and the organizational contexts in which innovation is ultimately pursued.
April 22, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
April 22, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Supradeep Dutta (Rutgers University - Camden) - will present. Paper information forthcoming.
April 29, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
April 29, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Megan Lawrence (Vanderbilt University) - will present "Are MBAs Good Entrepreneurs?" (with Evan Rawley and Kylie Hwang)
Abstract: While critics claim that Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs do little to cultivate entrepreneurial talent, many business schools emphasize their role in fostering entrepreneurship. To reconcile these competing perspectives, we develop a framework that distinguishes between entrepreneurial ability and commitment effects on entry, performance and exit. We empirically separate the two effects utilizing a longitudinal dataset of 1,260 hedge fund portfolio managers (1986-2023). The results show that MBAs are more likely to found new ventures and generate superior risk-adjusted returns; however, they are also more likely to exit, conditional on performance. The results are consistent with the interpretation that MBAs are good entrepreneurs but are less committed to entrepreneurship as a career choice.
May 6, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
May 6, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Nelson Ricardo Laverde Cubillos (Insper) - will present "Leading like Scientists"
Abstract: Decision making under uncertainty poses critical challenges for leaders, who must process ambiguous signals, revise their beliefs, and act under time pressure with incomplete information. We argue that these demands are better met by leaders trained in scientific reasoning, those who habitually define problems, derive testable hypotheses, and update beliefs as evidence accumulates. We capture this logic in a simple analytical model in which scientific training and occupational experience increase the returns to experimentation by improving Bayesian updating: STEM trained leaders design more diagnostic tests, generate higher quality signals, and converge to accurate beliefs more quickly than their non STEM peers, particularly when environmental uncertainty is high. We test the model’s implications using the COVID 19 pandemic as a crisis context, exploiting a regression discontinuity design around close mayoral elections in Brazil to compare municipalities narrowly won by STEM trained candidates with those narrowly won by non STEM candidates, approximating quasi random assignment of leadership type. The estimates indicate approximately 36 fewer COVID 19 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants under STEM educated mayors, a substantively large and statistically robust effect stable across alternative bandwidths and specifications. Consistent with the model’s predictions, the advantage is strongest among mayors with longer prior experience in STEM occupations, suggesting that formal training alone is insufficient and that sustained scientific practice deepens the cognitive routines driving better decisions, and appears linked to broader and more timely adoption of non pharmaceutical interventions that shape not only what leaders know, but how they learn.
September 9, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
September 9, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Madeleine Gates (Carnegie Mellon University) - Title forthcoming
September 23, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
September 23, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
October 21, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
October 21, 2026: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Patrick Llerena (University of Strasbourg) - will present "Schumpeterian entrepreneurship and ideation processes" (with Patrick Cohendet).
Abstract: This chapter aims to address the paradoxical portrayal of entrepreneurs in the Schumpeterian tradition. While entrepreneurs are portrayed as key players in economic development in Schumpeter's early works, they essentially disappear in neo-Schumpeterian literature, where their role is replaced by 'routines' as the primary operational component of organizations. This chapter re-establishes the entrepreneur as a producer of ideas, as well as an initiator and orchestrator of creative destruction, by reintegrating what we consider to be the primary “function of entrepreneurship”: generating and proposing new ideas and introducing novelty into the economic system. From this perspective, we argue that ideas, viewed primarily as processes, are the essence of the Schumpeterian entrepreneur’s role at the core of the 'entrepreneurial function', which orchestrates the ideation process by attracting, mobilizing and aligning allies around their vision. This entrepreneurial function takes different forms — from the 'heroic' entrepreneur of early capitalism, to a more 'depersonalized, routinised and automated' entity within large organizations, and, more recently, to an orchestrator within an innovative ecosystem.
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