This paper provides the first systematic evidence on secondary markets for equity in VC-backed startups, a fast-growing segment of private capital markets. Using proprietary data from a large market maker, we show that shares typically trade at a discount to prior venture capital valuations, with discounts narrowing when buyer demand is strong. We find that market activity responds to new information: in an event study, order flow and prices react quickly to VC financing events. Furthermore, secondary prices are forward-looking and predict future VC valuations. These signals are partially incorporated by mutual funds valuing their startup holdings. By providing both liquidity and price discovery, secondary markets are becoming an integral part of private capital markets, and their importance is likely to grow as startups remain private longer.

Do social transfer programs boost entrepreneurship among low-income populations? We address this question by examining Brazil's Bolsa Família---the world's largest cash transfer program---and its effects on entrepreneurial entry, performance, and economic mobility. Using administrative data covering 2.3 million sole-proprietorships, we track entrepreneurs through the complete business lifecycle---from entry through performance to post-failure employment. We address selection combining instrumental variables---exploiting bunching across program eligibility thresholds---with matching and granular fixed effects. We first show that cash transfers increase transitions into entrepreneurship from both non-employment and wage employment, increasing beneficiaries' representation among entrepreneurs. We then identify systematic performance disadvantages: cash-transfer entrepreneurs exhibit lower survival, business growth, employment creation, and credit access, eventually facing higher rates of tax violations and debt collection proceedings. Performance gaps appear to reflect two mechanisms: managerial constraints---evident in hiring less-educated workers at higher wages with stable employment---and dependency effects revealed by income bunching to maintain eligibility. Yet these same hiring patterns, along with stronger recruitment of racial minorities, produce positive spillovers extending beyond cash-transfer recipients. Examining post-entrepreneurship trajectories, we find that cash-transfer entrepreneurs secure worse jobs after business failure---lower occupational attainment and reduced earnings. However, their wage losses are 61% smaller than those of other failed entrepreneurs---suggesting the entrepreneurial experience builds human capital that disproportionately benefits cash-transfer participants. Our analysis---the first to track cash-transfer entrepreneurs through entry, performance, and post-failure outcomes---reveals that while these programs succeed at poverty alleviation, the businesses they create remain trapped in subsistence, generating neither growth nor pathways to economic mobility.

Do tax subsidies prompt investors to take on risk? We address this question by looking at investors' responses to changes to the Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) program, which reduces capital gains taxes on startup investing. We do so under a framework in which some startup investors --- venture capitalists (VCs) --- combine outside funding with incentive-based compensation, while others invest their own funds. Using bunching, triple-differences, and matching designs that exploit industry eligibility, investment vintage, and holding-period requirements, we analyze data from 158 thousand investor--firm pairings over two decades. We identify strategic investment timing, with subsidies prompting bunching at tax-eligible holding-period thresholds. Most notably, when and where tax subsidies apply, VCs shift their project selection toward riskier ventures: they invest more in pre-commercial stage startups, become more likely to provide startups with their initial capital, and invest more in startups with pre-existing debt, while becoming less likely to co-syndicate their investments. Tax-subsidized VC-backed ventures show higher failure rates, but on the flip side, attain higher valuations at exit and are more likely to reach "unicorn status." None of these patterns are observed for comparable non-VC investors in startups exposed to the same tax subsidies. Our tests further show that tax incentives lead to reallocation toward more innovative industries, yielding more impactful patents. Our study is the first to show that tax policy can shift entrepreneurial financing toward riskier, more innovative, and valuable startups.