【Job Talk】Venture Capital Contracts and Heterogeneous Innovation
2026/01/08
研討會日期 : 2026-01-08
時間 : 10:30
主講人 : Mr. Yucheng Wong (汪育丞)
地點 : Conference Room B110
主持人 : Professor Tsung-Hsien Li
演講者 : Mr. Wong is expected to receive his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Rochester in 2026. His research fields are Macroeconomics, International Economics, and Innovation. He is applying for a position of the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica now.
演講摘要 : This paper studies how venture capital (VC) reshapes startups' innovation choices by insuring against default risk, and explores the macroeconomic implications of this mechanism. I develop a dynamic general equilibrium model in which startups choose between conservative (low-risk, low-return) and aggressive (high-risk, high-return) innovation while endogenously selecting their financing mode. Debt financing features state uncontingent repayments and exposes startups to default. By contrast, VC financing is a state-contingent dynamic contract with one-sided limited commitment from startup. Evidence from a new dataset linking VC deals, balance sheets, and patents supports the model predictions: VC-backed startups begin with higher leverage, show greater post-financing profit dispersion, and generate more high-quality patents. Calibrated to financing and innovation data, eliminating VC reduces the aggregate output by 5 percent and the mass of large firms by 11 percent, despite only 0.2 percent of startups ever receiving VC.
