Elena Loutskina

Corporate Venture Capital, Value Creation, and Innovation

We analyze how corporate venture capitalists (CVCs) differ from independent venture capitalists (IVCs) in nurturing innovation in entrepreneurial firms. Using the NBER Patent Citation database, we find that CVCs help their portfolio firms achieve a higher degree of innovation productivity, as measured by their patenting, although these firms are younger, riskier, less profitable, and go public earlier compared to the entrepreneurial firms backed by IVCs. To establish causality, we use both an instrumental variable approach and a difference-in-difference approach, and show that the above baseline results are unlikely to be driven by the better selection ability on the part of CVCs. While our baseline results are based on VC-backed firms that eventually go public, we develop additional robustness tests using the entire universe of VC-backed private firms and show that our results are not driven by CVCs bringing their most innovative firms public: CVC-backed firms are more innovative regardless of their eventual exit outcomes or current investment status. Finally, we develop a simple theoretical model to analyze the mechanisms through which CVCs nurture innovation to a greater extent than IVCs, and test the implications of this model. Our analysis suggests that two possible mechanisms are CVCs’ greater tolerance for failure and greater industry specific knowledge arising from the strategic fit between the CVCs’ parent firms and the entrepreneurial firms they invest in.

Securitization and the Declining Impact of Bank Finance on Loan Supply: Evidence from Mortgage Acceptance Rates

This paper shows that securitization reduces the influence of bank financial condition on loan supply. Low-cost funding and increased balance-sheet liquidity raise bank willingness to approve mortgages that are hard to sell (jumbo mortgages), while having no effect on their willingness to approve mortgages easy to sell (non-jumbos). Thus, the increasing depth of the mortgage secondary market fostered by securitization has reduced the impact of local funding shocks on credit supply. By extension, securitization has weakened the link from bank funding conditions to credit supply in aggregate, thereby mitigating the real effects of monetary policy.

Mortgage Companies and Regulatory Arbitrage

Mortgage companies (MCs) do not fall under the strict regulatory regime of depository institutions. We empirically show that this gap resulted in regulatory arbitrage and allowed bank holding companies (BHCs) to circumvent consumer compliance regulations, mitigate capital requirements, and reduce exposure to loan-related losses. Compared to bank subsidiaries, MC subsidiaries of BHCs originated riskier mortgages to borrowers with lower credit scores, lower incomes, higher loan-to-income ratios, and higher default rates. Our results imply that precrisis regulations had the capacity to mitigate the deterioration of lending standards if consistently applied and enforced for all types of intermediaries.

How Do Corporate Venture Capitalists Create Value for Entrepreneurial Firms

We analyze how corporate venture capitalists (CVCs) create value for entrepreneurial firms backed by them and how value creation by CVCs differs from that of independent venture capitalists (IVCs). Making use of a large data set consisting of a sample of CVC-backed and IVC-backed firms (starting from their first round of investment in an entrepreneurial firm and going well into the post-IPO market), we explore three related research questions: First, do CVCs exploit their knowledge and industry expertise when choosing portfolio firms, and invest in significantly different kinds of firms compared to independent venture capitalists (IVCs)? Second, do they succeed in creating greater product market value subsequent to investment compared to IVCs? Finally, do they allow portfolio firms to access the equity markets more efficiently? Our empirical findings indicate that there are two ways in which CVCs uniquely create value for entrepreneurial firms. First, CVC create value by investing significant amounts in younger and riskier firms involving pioneering technologies: since many such firms would not have received private equity financing from IVCs, these firms may not have been able to grow and mature without CVC funding. Second, CVCs seem to play an important role in signaling the true value of firms backed by them to three different constituencies: first, to IVCs, prompting them to co-invest in these firms pre-IPO; second, to various financial market players such as underwriters, institutional investors, and analysts, allowing them to access the equity market at an earlier stage in their life-cycle compared to firms backed by IVCs alone; and third, directly to IPO market investors, allowing CVC-backed firms to obtain higher IPO market valuations compared to the valuation of firms backed by IVCs alone.

Stress Tests and Small Business Lending

Post-crisis stress tests have altered banks’ credit supply to small business. Banks affected by stress tests reduce credit supply and raise interest rates on small business loans. Banks price the implied increase in capital requirements from stress tests where they have local knowledge, and exit markets where they do not, as quantities fall most in markets where stress-tested banks do not own branches near borrowers, and prices rise mainly where they do. These reductions in supply are concentrated among risky borrowers. Stress tests do not, however, reduce aggregate credit. Small banks increase their share in geographies formerly reliant on stress-tested lenders.

Drilling and Debt

This paper documents a previously unrecognized debt‐related investment distortion. Using detailed project‐level data for 69 firms in the oil and gas industry, we find that highly levered firms pull forward investment, completing projects early at the expense of long‐run project returns and project value. This behavior is particularly pronounced prior to debt renegotiations. We test several channels that could explain this behavior and find evidence consistent with equity holders sacrificing long‐run project returns to enhance collateral values and, by extension, mitigate lending frictions at debt renegotiations.

Fiscal Stimulus and Consumer Debt

In the aftermath of consumer debt-induced recession, policymakers have questioned whether fiscal stimulus is effective during the periods of high consumer indebtedness. This study empirically investigates this question. Using detailed data on Department of Defense spending for the 2006-2009 period, we document that the open-economy relative fiscal multiplier is higher in geographies with higher consumer indebtedness. The results suggest that fiscal policy can mitigate the adverse effect of consumer (over)leverage on real economic output during a recession. We then exploit detailed microdata to evaluate aggregate demand and aggregate supply-side economic mechanisms potentially underlying this result.