About

Emanuele Colonnelli is a professor of finance and entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His research focuses on the intersection of finance, entrepreneurship, and development economics, with a particular interest in the role of financial institutions in promoting economic growth and reducing poverty in developing countries.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Economics
• Market economy
• Management
• Geography
• Law
• Business
• Economic geography
• Economy

Selected publications

• Politics at Work

  American Economic Review · 2025-09-30 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We study how individual political views shape firm behavior and labor market outcomes using new microdata from Brazil. We first show that business owners are considerably more likely to employ copartisan workers. This phenomenon is in part driven by the overlapping of political and social networks. Multiple tests—surveys, event studies, analyses of wage premia and promotions within the firm, and a field experiment—further highlight how business owners’ political preferences directly influence firms’ employment decisions. A channel of political discrimination appears more relevant than one of political quid pro quo between firms and politicians. (JEL C93, D22, D72, J23, M51, O17, Z13)

  PublisherDOI

• ESG is the Most Polarizing Nonwage Amenity: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Brazil

  AEA Papers and Proceedings · 2025-05-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We examine job seekers' heterogeneous preferences for nonwage amenities, with a focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices, using an incentivized field experiment in Brazil. Our findings reveal that ESG is the most polarizing nonwage amenity across multiple sociodemographic groups, with the strongest preferences observed among highly educated, White, and politically liberal individuals (Colonnelli et al. 2025). While women report a stronger preference for work-from-home policies, all other nonwage amenities exhibit minimal variation across sociodemographic groups. Our findings highlight the critical role of corporate values in shaping economic outcomes within an increasingly polarized society.

  PublisherDOI

• ESG is the Most Polarizing Nonwage Amenity: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Brazil

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• ESG Is The Most Polarizing Nonwage Amenity: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Brazil

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-02-01 · 1 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We examine job-seekers' heterogeneous preferences for nonwage amenities, with a focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices, using an incentivized field experiment in Brazil.Our findings reveal that ESG is the most polarizing nonwage amenity across multiple sociodemographic groups, with the strongest preferences observed among highly educated, white, and politically liberal individuals (Colonnelli et al., 2025).While women report a stronger preference for work-from-home policies, all other nonwage amenities exhibit minimal variation across sociodemographic groups.Our findings highlight the critical role of corporate values in shaping economic outcomes within an increasingly polarized society.

  PublisherDOI

• Do Information Frictions and Corruption Perceptions Kill Competition? A Field Experiment On Public Procurement in Uganda

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-02-01 · 2 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We study whether information frictions and corruption perceptions deter firms from doing business with the government.We conduct two nationwide randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in collaboration with the national public procurement supervisory and anti-corruption agency in Uganda.The first RCT aims to increase firms' information on available procurement opportunities, which is limited due to the lack of a centralized e-procurement system.We provide firms with direct and timely access to information about government tenders over a twoyear period.The second RCT focuses on firms' perceptions about the integrity of public entities, which we experimentally show are key drivers of firms' participation in procurement.We provide firms with access to structured information on other firms' perceptions and on anticorruption audits.We find that increasing information on available procurement opportunities alone does not increase firm participation in public procurement.However, changing firms' perceptions about the integrity of public entities increases firms' total number of bids and total government contracts won.Based on our findings, our partner agency implemented several measures to further restore firms' trust in public entities.Overall, our findings point to the limits of transparency reforms that aim to increase competition in public procurement without accounting for firms' perceptions about government corruption and inefficiency.

  PublisherDOI

• Global Private Capital Investors

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-10-14

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Does Corporate Transparency Matter? Evidence from Uganda

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-04-19

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Does Corporate Transparency Matter? Evidence from Uganda

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-04-19

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Entrepreneurship Education

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-11-15 · 4 citations

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Does Corporate Transparency Matter? Evidence from Uganda

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-04-19

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Mounu Prem

  Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance

  56 shared

• Margarita Tsoutsoura

  44 shared

• Jacopo Ponticelli

  40 shared

• Spyridon Lagaras

  University of Pittsburgh

  40 shared

• Shai Bernstein

  36 shared

• Benjamin Charles Iverson

  Brigham Young University

  26 shared

• Davide Malacrino

  12 shared

• Ernest Liu

  Princeton University

  12 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Stanford University

  2018

Awards & honors

• 2023 Carlo Alberto Medal