NBER Working Papers · 2026 · [{"name": "Murillo Campello", "affiliation": []}, {"name": "Guilherme Junqueira", "affiliation": []}]
中文摘要
税收补贴会促使投资者承担风险吗？我们通过考察投资者对合格小企业股票（QSBS）计划变化的反应来回答这一问题，该计划降低了初创企业投资的资本利得税。我们的分析置于这样一个框架之下：部分初创企业投资者——风险投资家（VC）——将外部资金与激励性薪酬相结合，而另一些投资者则投资自有资金。利用基于行业资格、投资年份和持有期要求的聚集、三重差分和匹配设计，我们分析了二十年间15.8万个投资者—企业配对的数据。我们识别出策略性投资时机选择，即补贴促使投资在符合税收资格的持有期阈值处发生聚集。最值得注意的是，在税收补贴适用的时间和地点，风险投资家会将其项目选择转向风险更高的企业：他们更多投资于商业化前阶段的初创企业，更有可能向初创企业提供初始资本，并更多投资于已有债务的初创企业，同时联合投资的可能性降低。获得税收补贴的VC支持企业表现出更高的失败率，但另一方面，其退出时估值更高，也更有可能达到“独角兽”地位。在暴露于相同税收补贴的初创企业中，可比的非VC投资者并未观察到上述任何模式。我们的检验进一步表明，税收激励导致资源重新配置到更具创新性的行业，并产生影响力更大的专利。我们的研究首次表明，税收政策能够将创业融资转向风险更高、更具创新性且更有价值的初创企业。
Abstract
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.