Sustainability and Discrimination in the Entrepreneurial Financing Setting: Experimental Evidence

Purpose and goal:

This research project aims to investigate the causal impact of aiming for ESG, including encouraging female leadership, on VC/PE funds and companies through a series of lab-in-the-field experiments. Experimental results not only provide important insights on the benefits and costs of impact investing and ESG initiatives for VC/PE investors and companies, but also helps to explain the financial performance of impact funds and impact ventures in the private market.

We also expect these empirical findings to test several fundamental theories in sustainable finance. Expected results and effects:

There is limited knowledge regarding the implications of ESG initiatives, especially encouraging female leadership, for major players in the private market. Through a series of experiments, we expect to establish rigorous causal relationships between different types of investors´/companies´ ESG practices and their impact for investors and companies in the entrepreneurial financing market and the labor market.

Experimental results will be summarized in academic papers and circulated at relevant academic conferences and business conferences. Approach and implementation:

Parts of the experiments have been approved by the Ethical Review Board of Stockholm School of Economics. Relevant pre-registration plans have also been uploaded on the AEA-Registry Platform. We expect the recruitment process of these experiments to be completed by the end of 2022 and data analysis part to be completed by the summer of 2023.

The research team will generate preliminary paper drafts, which mainly contain the empirical findings, by the summer of 2023. Based on the experimental results, we aim to finish the corresponding theoretical framework by the end of 2023.