Essays in macroeconomics and business dynamics Alexander Sawyer

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Sawyer, Alexander, author.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. Economics., degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

0501.

0511.

0310.

0429.

Local Subjects:

0501.

0511.

0310.

0429.

Genre:

Academic theses

Physical Description:

1 online resource (115 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertations Abstracts International 87-12A

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 2026

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Chapter 1 develops a theory of dynamic learning through repeated search in the market between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs with startups of unknown potential value. In the model, entrepreneurs repeatedly meet with venture capitalists, and engage in R&D to develop their projects independently. Both of these activities are informative for the entrepreneur, as venture capitalists draw private signals about the unknown type of the project, and R&D outcomes also depend on the underlying potential value. Using administrative data on the universe of U.S employers, I create a novel dataset of businesses in the market for venture capital. I use these data to estimate the model and then to quantitatively value each source of information in the model. I find that the private assessments of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are more valuable as sources of information than what entrepreneurs learn from attempts at scaling-up their projects through R&D, with venture capitalists' assessments being more informative than entrepreneurs'. Reducing the venture capitalists' assessment expertise to that of entrepreneurs lowers the value generated by this market by 7%. Moreover, through this information production venture capitalists exert a positive externality in the market. In a counterfactual in which entrepreneurs subsidize 1.5% of venture capitalists entry costs, entrepreneur welfare is greater by 2.2%. In an alternate model in which venture capitalists have no assessment expertise, in a counterfactual with the same transfer scheme, entrepreneur welfare is lower by 2.1%. In Chapter 2, which is joint work with Daniel Jaar and Ruben Piazzesi, we ask which jobs best prepare workers to become successful entrepreneurs. Using Portuguese matched employer-employee administrative data that track workers' occupational histories and link founders to the subsequent performance of their firms, we document a central role for managerial experience. Managers are substantially more likely to transition into entrepreneurship than other workers, and among founders, each additional year of prior managerial experience is associated with a 5% larger firm size. The relationship is heterogeneous: the association is roughly twice as large for non-college-educated entrepreneurs, consistent with managerial experience partly substituting for formal education, and it is stronger when the entrepreneur's managerial experience was accumulated in the same sector as the venture. Finally, by measuring experience at the occupation-by-firm-size level, we show that managerial experience remains the strongest predictor of entrepreneurial success within every firm-size category and is particularly valuable when gained in large firms

Notes:

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-12, Section: A.

Advisors: Ríos-Rull, José-Víctor Committee members: Cole, Harold; Ordoñez, Guillermo

Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2026

Vendor supplied data

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9798247973676

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license