Great Recession babies: How are startups shaped by macro conditions at birth?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bias, Daniel; Ljungqvist, Alexander
• 署名单位: Vanderbilt University; Stockholm School of Economics; Swedish House of Finance; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-405X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2026.104354
• 发表日期: 2026-11
• 页码: 104354
• 关键词: Startups; great recession; Scarring; INNOVATION; patents; R&D; labor mobility; business cycles; labor-market; DYNAMICS; POLICY; RISK

摘要

We propose a novel identification strategy to estimate the long-term imprinting effects of being born in the Great Recession on innovative startups. After purging ubiquitous selection biases and sorting effects, we find that recession startups experience substantially better long-term outcomes in terms of survival and growth in employment and sales, despite being born when funding is scarce and demand is declining. In contrast to prior work, we find that the recession does not encourage entry into entrepreneurship as job prospects dim; instead, it discourages exit by critical R&D workers who help recession startups out-innovate and out-perform expansion startups.