Three essays on digital capital raising

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Type and Duration

PhD-Thesis, since September 2022

Coordinator

Chair in Finance

Main Research

Wealth Management

Description

The research focus lies in the intersection of the extensive theoretical and empirical studies in corporate finance and the nascent topics related to distributed ledger developments. Existing capital structure theories, such as the pecking order of financing preferences, have limited explanatory power on the choice of funding sources and shall be extended. Moreover, the traditional financing paradigm may even be offset by new financing technologies that reduce contracting costs and that offer a different governance profile. While the theoretical promises of these technologies for equity capital raising are high, financing with tokens has not become a mainstream option for funding entrepreneurial ventures yet, which leads to interesting questions for research and wider society. An interesting area is the digital representation of an investment product, recorded on a distributed ledger, and subject to regulation under securities laws. The Blockchain Act (2020) in Liechtenstein and the DLT law (2021) in Switzerland, for example, enable these developments and lead to an opportune timing to investigate the development of this digital financing as a possible approach to ease access to capital for SMEs.

PhD-Student

Yann Thorens

Supervisor

Assoz. Prof. Dr. Martin Angerer

Co-Supervisor

Prof. Sean Donahugh Vanderfield Foley