Josh Lerner is an American economist known for his research in

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...

, and innovation and

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

. He is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at the

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

. According to

Web of Science The Web of Science (WoS; previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a paid-access platform that provides (typically via the internet) access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedi ...

on June 16, 2023, he has 165 indexed publications and a

Hirsch index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with success indicators such as winning the ...

of 66, an
over 74,000 citations
on Google Scholar, which puts him in top 5% of economics researchers in the USA. His research encompasses investments, startups,

and

Early life

Josh Lerner graduated from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, and he earned a PhD in economics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Career

Lerner worked for the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

. He was also a research fellow in the International Security program at the

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs The Robert and Renée Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, also known as the Belfer Center, is a research center located at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. From 2 ...

in 1990–1991. He later joined the faculty at the Harvard Business School, where he was eventually promoted as the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking. He is a member of the

European Corporate Governance Institute European, or Europeans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe and other West ...

. Lerner is the author of several books. He won the Axiom Business Book Award and the PROSE Award for Excellence in Business for ''Boulevard of Broken Dreams'' in 2009. Between 2008 and 2010 Lerner was a member of the advisory board of The Abraaj Group and a paid consultant to the firm until 2017. As well as authoring HBS case studies on the firm and leading the Abraaj Academy, Lerner wrote a report used by Abraaj as a validation of its own questionable portfolio valuation methodologies, later described by Lerner as an inadvertent mistake. Abraaj filed for

provisional liquidation Provisional liquidation is a process which exists as part of the corporate insolvency laws of a number of common law jurisdictions whereby after the lodging of a petition for the winding-up of a company by the court, but before the court hears ...

in 2018 with the founder Arif Naqvi the subject of a criminal investigation in the United States for the misappropriation of $250 million in investor funding. Lerner received the

Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research The Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research is an international award that recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of entrepreneurship research. Established in 1996, it aims to promote the advancement of knowledge in entrepreneurship ...

in 2010.

Selected publications

Books

Lerner is an author and co-author of several books including: * * * * * * * * *

References

Living people Yale University alumni Harvard University alumni Harvard Business School faculty 20th-century American economists 21st-century American economists Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-business-academic-bio-stub