Emanuele Colonnelli

Biography

Emanuele Colonnelli is the Professor of Finance and Entrepreneurship at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER, and a Research Affiliate at CEPR, BREAD, and J-PAL. He also leads the Finance and Entrepreneurship Theme at PEDL. He is the recipient of a number of grants and awards, such as the 2023 Carlo Alberto Medal, a biennial prize given to the best Italian economist under 40. 

Colonnelli’s research focuses on the intersection between finance, development, and political economy, with a special interest in the interactions between governments, firms, entrepreneurs, and investors. Specific interests include a range of topics such as venture capital and private equity in emerging markets, corporate governance, corruption, ESG and impact investing, public procurement, and corporate bankruptcy. He has research and work experience in several emerging economies, including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, and Vietnam and regularly conducts world-wide surveys and field experiments with entrepreneurs, firms, and investors. His research has been published in various top academic journals, such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Financial Economics. At Booth, he developed and teaches the first MBA class focused on venture capital and private equity in emerging markets.

Colonnelli joined Booth in 2018 as an Assistant Professor of Finance, and from 2022 he was Associate Professor of Finance and MV Advisors Faculty Fellow. He was also a Visiting Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, where he taught the MBA elective on Entrepreneurial Finance.

Colonnelli holds a PhD in Economics from Stanford University, an MSc in Economics from Bocconi University, a BSc in Economics from the University of Siena, and he spent an academic year visiting Pembroke College, Oxford University.

Academic Areas

• Entrepreneurship
• Finance