We seek to understand how finance can support sustainable growth in the real economy. We produce scholarship that improves financial decision making by firms, investors, and policy makers. We achieve this through two methods: conducting rigorous academic research on the relationship between the financial sector and the real economy; and collaborating with practitioners who can offer operational insights and complement academic analyses.
Our research is divided into three areas. The first area explores the challenges that firms face when seeking to grow and innovate and the role of various financial intermediaries in helping mitigate those challenges including banks, business angels, private equity funds, crowdsourcing platforms, and venture capital investors. The second area examines how public and private innovations, in the form of regulations and financial technologies, respectively, impact the financing of corporations and start-up firms. The third area looks at the role of financial markets in funding public goods, with a particular focus on projects that promote sustainable growth.
