The Department of Laws, Regulations and Factor Markets conducts research on the interaction of labour and capital factor markets and on how laws and regulations affect labour and capital markets. Research topics studied include startup creation and growth, gender-based gaps in entrepreneurship, gender diversity on corporate boards and its impact on employee satisfaction, productivity and turnover, effects of financial constraints and financial regulation on the allocation of capital and labour. The list below contains a sample of current research projects studied in the department.
 

• capital misallocation and innovation
• impact of real innovation on firm and labour outcomes; how patents affect worker level outcomes, including wages and career progression of workers
• relation between intangible investment, wage distribution and wage inequality
• effects of loan guarantees on the efficiency of capital and labour reallocation across firms
• welfare gains from trade under financial frictions
• interdependency between access to capital markets and access to labour markets (i.e., how going public expands the labour market access of a firm for skilled labour, and conversely, how skilled labour facilitates access to public capital markets)
• role of established firms in reallocating resources from capital markets to startups through corporate venture capital activity and acquisition of venture capital backed startups
• role of established firms in training and nurturing entrepreneurial human capital for creation of future startups
• how labour representation, voice and gender diversity on corporate boards affect employee satisfaction, productivity and turnover
• examining human capital diversity in firms with a focus on:
  
  (i) how promoting gender diversity in established firms contributes to gender diversity in entrepreneurship and facilitates the creation of Femtech startups (startups addressing well-being and health needs of women)
  
  (ii) how reducing gender-based gap in politics helps reduce gender-based gap in entrepreneurship
  
  

• impact of capital market regulation and financial innovation (i. e., CoCo bonds) on financial stability and capital provision
• impact of capital market regulation on household income, entrepreneurship and income inequality
• antitrust laws and regulations, and their impact on the liquidity of the market for corporate assets, and reallocation of capital and labour across firms
• corporate board gender quota laws and availability of startup financing for female entrepreneurs
• reallocation of R&D tax credits from established firms to financially constrained startups
• corporate taxes and established firm incentives to invest in startups