Networking Frictions in Venture Capital, and the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship / Sabrina T. Howell, Ramana Nanda.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Howell, Sabrina T.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Nanda, Ramana.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w26449.

NBER working paper series no. w26449

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2019.

Summary:

Exploiting random variation in the number of venture capitalist (VC) judges assigned to panels at Harvard Business School's New Venture Competition (NVC) between 2000 and 2015, we find that exposure to more VC judges increases male participants' chances of founding a VC-backed startup after HBS much more than this exposure increases female participants' chances. A survey suggests this is in part because male participants more often proactively reach out to VC judges after the NVC. Our results suggest that networking frictions are an important reason men benefit more than women from exposure to VCs. Such frictions can help explain part of the gender gap in entrepreneurship, and also have implications for how to design networking opportunities to facilitate financing of the best (rather than just the best networked) ideas.

Notes:

Print version record

November 2019.