About

Paige Clayton is an Assistant Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. She is also the Director of the Masters in City and Regional Planning program. Her research focuses on the use of quantitative methods to examine how entrepreneurial activities and industries develop within geographic regions, how knowledge is shared across organizations and regions, and the role of policy in these processes. Dr. Clayton explores the relationships among firms, institutions, intermediaries, policymakers, and other stakeholders within entrepreneurial regions, aiming to understand the context for entrepreneurship and its contribution to innovation and industrial growth. Her work has practical implications for firms, policymakers, and regional planners, with the goal of helping cities and regions pursue effective technology-based economic development strategies.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Marketing
• Business
• Sociology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Science
• Public relations
• Finance
• Regional science
• Public administration
• Chemistry
• Knowledge management
• Ecology

Selected publications

• Government Policy and Entrepreneurship: Identifying the (Un)Intended Effects

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Government policy is a powerful tool to stimulate entrepreneurial activity. Yet, the effectiveness of government policies and interventions remains inconsistent across regions, industries and populations.The proposed symposium coalesces leading scholars to discuss how various government policies and interventions, including merit financial aid, educational support systems, Community Development Financial Institutions, and urban design, affect regional entrepreneurial activity, with a special emphasis on policies that may support underrepresented founders. Four insightful papers employ diverse methodological approaches—including longitudinal studies, field experiments, and advanced econometric techniques—to broadly examine what drives regional, urban, rural and hyper-local entrepreneurial activities. Does State Merit Aid Increase Entrepreneurship? Evidence from Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship Program Author: Paige Clayton; Georgia Institute of Technology Author: Susan L. Cohen; University of Georgia Author: Ross Rubenstein; Georgia State University Social Support Dependency: The Impact of Food Assistance on Rural Entrepreneurship Entry Author: Paul Sanchez-Ruiz; Oklahoma State University Author: Ileana Maldonado-Bautista; Iowa State University Author: Myeongho Park; Oklahoma State University Innovation Neighborhoods Author: Maria Roche; Harvard University Author: Jorge Guzman; Columbia Business School Role of Community Development Financial Institutions in Supporting Inclusive Economic Development Author: Evan Johnson; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Author: Lauren Lanahan; University of Oregon Author: Amol M. Joshi; Wake Forest University Author: Iman Hemmatian; California State Polytechnic University-Pomona

  PublisherDOI

• The (Uneven) Spatial Distribution of Entrepreneurial Support Organizations in the Regional Ecosystem

  Journal of Planning Education and Research · 2025-06-21 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Existing research recognizes the importance of entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) in facilitating entrepreneurial activity and economic development in regional entrepreneurial ecosystems. We have insufficient knowledge, however, of the accessibility to such resources by different entrepreneur groups, especially spatially. This study uses the diversifying Atlanta Metropolitan Area to examine this question. Spatial visualizations and statistical analyses reveal uneven geographic clustering of all, and racial minority-targeting, ESOs. Neighborhoods with worsening poverty rates do not attract ESOs. Since the spatial distribution of ESOs might hinder access, we urge planners to strategically coordinate ESO efforts through better understanding their locations, services, and clientele.

  PublisherDOI

• More than Analytics: Five Approaches to Educating Professionals to Shape Today’s Digital Cities

  Journal of Planning Education and Research · 2024-06-19 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  In the last two decades, a variety of digital technologies have proliferated in cities. Urban planning educators must respond to this given local resources, constraints, and options. This commentary reviews curricular innovations being undertaken by planning faculty at five diverse institutions to advance pedagogy beyond analytics. Our contribution is to identify three general approaches to expand teaching on digital technologies: (1) undertake reforms within accredited planning programs, (2) develop new educational offerings, and (3) teach through engaged learning programs. We urge broader curricular innovation in the planning field to ensure the field’s relevance and impact in an increasingly technical future.

  PublisherDOI

• Mentored without incubation: Start-up survival, funding, and the role of entrepreneurial support organization services

  Research Policy · 2024-02-23 · 28 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Role of Speedier Government Financing for New High-Tech Firms

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Role of Speedier Public Funding for Small High-Tech Firms

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023-07-24 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We exploit a unique programmatic shift in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s small business technology seed funding programs to investigate whether shorter time periods between proof-of concept and seed stages in public venture capital (VC) allow firms to achieve greater technology and financial milestones. Our paper is motivated by an observation made by founders that federal funding is too slow. Through a series of two-way fixed effects regression models the sample of National Institutes of Health (NIH) recipient firms, we find that faster public VC leaders to greater technology outcomes on some metrics, but not all. Next, by exploiting exogenous variation in state match programs, we show that these results also are magnified by windfall state funding. Our findings have practical implications for policymakers and for entrepreneurial strategy. We contribute to the literatures on innovation policy, the federal SBIR/STTR programs, and provide new understanding of the role of timing in public venture finance and entrepreneurial strategy.

  PublisherDOI

• Entrepreneurial finance and regional ecosystem emergence

  Small Business Economics · 2023-10-07 · 16 citations

  article1st author
  PublisherDOI

• Innovation Ecosystem Database: Georgia

  Harvard Dataverse · 2023-07-14 · 1 citations

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Entrepreneurial and innovation support organizations operating across the state of Georgia U.S. historically. Data include address, organization website, and details on operations including support type and whether the organization targets certain communities of entrepreneurs.

  PublisherDOI

• Different outcomes for different founders? Local organizational sponsorship and entrepreneurial finance

  Small Business Economics · 2023-04-05 · 19 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Accelerator niches in an emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem: New York city

  Local Economy The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit · 2022 · 18 citations

  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Business

  Although the literature on accelerators, an important and newer model of entrepreneurial support, considers their performance and the definition of the form, little is known about how accelerators populate in a single ecosystem over time. We find accelerators are established by different types of entities such as non-profit organizations, local governments, universities, and even foreign government agencies with different goals. Based on a novel dataset of all 107 accelerator programs that ever operated in New York City, we propose a new way of categorizing accelerators by their founding attributes. We confirm that the emergence of accelerators in New York City started with the entry of non-profit accelerators for the purpose of local economic development. For-profit actors followed. Accelerators began from the periphery of the city’s geographic boundaries, but over time became concentrated in Manhattan. We also observe a shift toward sector specialization. Our contributions are to examine the development of one entrepreneurial support organization over time in one ecosystem, present a method to categorize accelerators based on their sub-niches, and to provide evidence of a catalyzing role of local government in fostering ecosystem emergence.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Maryann P. Feldman

  Arizona State University

  9 shared

• Benjamin Montmartin

  Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Économie, Gestion

  6 shared

• Shiri M. Breznitz

  3 shared

• Nichola Lowe

  University of Minnesota

  3 shared

• Mary Donegan

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  2 shared

• Allison Forbes

  University of Arizona

  2 shared

• Kimberley R. Isett

  University of Delaware

  2 shared

• Lauren Lanahan

  2 shared

Education

• PhD, Public Policy

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  2020

Awards & honors

• Nancy W. Stegman Fellowship