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Independent Directors And Shared Board Control In Venture Finance, Brian J. Broughman
Independent Directors And Shared Board Control In Venture Finance, Brian J. Broughman
Articles by Maurer Faculty
In most VC-backed firms neither the entrepreneurs nor the VC investors control the board. Instead control is typically shared with a mutually appointed independent director holding the tie-breaking seat. Contract theory, which treats control as an indivisible right held by one party, does not have a good explanation for this practice. Using a bargaining game similar to final offer arbitration, I show that an independent director as tie-breaker can reduce holdup by moderating each party’s ex post threat position, potentially expanding the range of firms which receive external financing. This project contributes to the literature on incomplete contracting and ...
Engineering A Venture Capital Market: Lessons From The American Experience, Ronald J. Gilson
Engineering A Venture Capital Market: Lessons From The American Experience, Ronald J. Gilson
Faculty Scholarship
The venture capital market and firms whose creation and early stages were financed by venture capital are among the crown jewels of the American economy. Beyond representing an important engine of macroeconomic growth and job creation, these firms have been a major force in commercializing cutting-edge science, whether through their impact on existing industries as with the radical changes in pharmaceuticals catalyzed by venture-backed firms' commercialization of biotechnology, or by their role in developing entirely new industries as with the emergence of the Internet and World Wide Web. The venture capital market thus provides a unique link between finance and ...
Engineering A Venture Capital Market: Lessons From The American Experience, Ronald J. Gilson
Engineering A Venture Capital Market: Lessons From The American Experience, Ronald J. Gilson
Faculty Scholarship
This paper seeks to identify the core of the U.S. venture capital contracting model, and then assess the extent to which the model provides guidance in engineering venture capital markets in other countries and, in particular, in identifying a viable role for government in assisting that project. All financial contracts respond to three central contracting problems: uncertainty, information asymmetry and opportunism in the form of agency costs. The special character of venture capital contracting is shaped by the fact that investing in early stage, high technology companies presents these problems in extreme form. The genius of U.S. venture ...