Hello! I am an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Cox School of Business at SMU since August 2025.
My research interests are in corporate finance, labor economics, and entrepreneurship. One strand of my research uses administrative microdata to study how household shocks propagate to entrepreneurial firms. A second strand studies the effect of demand and technological shocks at the firm level on workers’ careers and inequality. My research has been featured in Forbes.
Before joining SMU, I was a Stone Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia. You can learn more about me in my CV.
Email me: vrutigliano@smu.edu
Minding Your Business or Your Child? Entrepreneurs, Fertility, and Firm and Worker Outcomes
Job Market Paper
Media Coverage: Forbes
Selected presentations: (2024) SFS Cavalcade; CSEF-RCFS Conference on Finance, Labor and Inequality; EFA; HEC Paris Entrepreneurship Workshop; (2025) AEA; Finance Down Under; SITE Gender Session; LSE CenTax Workshop; (2026) scheduled: AFA
Using Canadian administrative data, I document that childbirth has substantial and persistent effects on female entrepreneurs’ firm performance and employees’ outcomes. Over the five years after a founder’s first birth, sales, assets, and profits fall by 15–25%. Performance in firms owned by fathers remains unchanged, while firms owned by spouses experience a moderate decline. The drop in firm outcomes spill over to employees of mother-owned firms, who experience a 4% reduction in earnings. Fertility among employees rises after the entrepreneur’s childbirth, suggesting within-firm network effects in family formation. The penalties for mother-owned firms cannot be fully explained by household specialization based on labor market advantage. Childcare availability and progressive gender norms mitigate the adverse effect of childbirth on the entrepreneurship gap.
Entrepreneurs' Diversification and Labor Income Risk
with Jan Bena, Andrew Ellul, and Marco Pagano
FMA Best Paper in Corporate Finance; CSEF/UniCredit Foundation Best Paper Award
Selected presentations: (2023) UNC-Duke Corporate Finance*, SFS Cavalcade, FIRS, CSEF - RCFS Conference on Finance, Labor and
Inequality; EFA*; NFA; (2024) ASSA Econometrics Society*, CSEF-IGIER Symposium on Economics and Institutions
Entrepreneurs with better diversified portfolios provide more insurance to employees against labor income risk: in a sample of over 524,000 Canadian firms and 858,000 owners, firms owned by more diversified entrepreneurs offer more stable jobs and earnings to employees when faced by idiosyncratic shocks. A one standard deviation increase in owner’s diversification reduces the shock’s pass-through rate to labor layoffs by 13% and to workers’ earnings by 41%. The data are consistent with such insurance being partly provided to retain valuable human capital and partly to avoid costly terminations. There is no evidence of insurance being priced in average wages.
Young firms create more jobs than established firms in response to positive demand shocks, yet the mechanisms behind this excess responsiveness remain largely unknown. This paper investigates the strategic choices firms make to exploit growth opportunities at different stages of their life cycle. Using detailed data on firms’ international trade activities, I show that the decisions to increase market penetration in existing markets, diversify their product portfolios, or expand into new geographic markets in response to demand shocks vary over the life cycle. Young entrepreneurs, not just young firms, are more responsive to demand shocks.
Commodity Price Shocks and Growth in the Green Economy: Evidence from the Mining Sector
with Jan Bena
This study examines the mining sector’s responsiveness to global commodity price shocks, with a focus on critical minerals essential for the low-carbon transition, such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium. First, we show that exploration and extraction activities are highly responsive to global commodity price fluctuations. Second, we analyze the reallocation of human capital from other sectors as sustainable mining emerges as a key industry. Our analysis considers both the flow of professionals from various industries into mining and the individuals who capitalize on these opportunities to establish new firms or become early-stage investors in mining ventures.