Promotie mr. P.P. Desai

This Ph.D. dissertation consists of three independent chapters in corporate finance and innovation. The first chapter studies how in-group biases of patent examiners - an important set of regulators - affect their decisions to grant patents. Additionally, it highlights the costs of these biased decisions for inventors, startups, and the economy. The second chapter studies how limited investor attention affects analyst

coverage of firms and thereby, information provision to the financial markets. The last chapter documents that firms punish female inventors for their “as-good-asrandom” creative failures more harshly than they punish men. These differences in punishment cause early-stage female inventors to exit innovation at higher rates than their male colleagues.

Pranav Pradeep Desai (Mumbai, India, 1990), received his Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from University of Mumbai, and then a Master’s Degree in Finance and a Master’s Degree in Economics from Lancaster University and University College London respectively. He began his Research Master in Finance at Tilburg University in 2015, supported by the CentER scholarship, before starting his PhD in 2016. In fall 2020, he joined the Department of Finance at Nova School of Business and Economics as an Assistant Professor.

• Locatie: Cobbenhagen building, Aula
• Promotores: prof. dr. O.G. Spalt, prof. dr. F. Braggion
• Copromotor: dr. S. Cassella PhD