Decision making in the venture capital and private equity industry - an experimental approach examining risk-taking, effort provision, heuristics and biases

This dissertation investigates decision making in the venture capital and private equity industry with two projects using ideas from behavioral economics and methods from experimental economics. The first project investigates the influence of a changing hurdle rate on the risk-taking and effort-giving of a private equity firm. The second project explores heuristic decision making and decision biases in the venture capital and private equity industry. The dissertation concludes with an evaluation of the approach.