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Mon 04/24
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Seminar @ Cornell Tech: David Robinson

Why Aren’t There More Minority Entrepreneurs?

We examine racial and gender differences in the intention to start a business and steps taken along the path to starting a business. Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to consider starting businesses; however, conditional on doing so, they are much less likely to launch the business. Black, unlike Hispanic or female respondents, are less likely to discuss ideas with friends or peers with relevant expertise. Racial differences in new business formation vanish when controlling for these (presumably low-cost) network channels. These results have important implications for policies aimed at boosting entrepreneurship in under-represented communities.

Full paper here

Speaker Bio

David Robinson is the James and Gail Vander Weide Professor of Finance at the Fuqua School of Business. He is also a Faculty Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he serves as the co-Director of the Entrepreneurship Working Group. His research has appeared in leading academic journals in finance and economics, including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and the American Economic Review. 

Professor Robinson earned an MBA and PhD from the University of Chicago GSB, a Master’s from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina. In 2016 he received an honorary doctorate from the Stockholm School of Economics.