Symposium on Private Firms: Reporting, Financing, and the Aggregate Economy 2025

Welcome to the second Symposium on Private Firms: Reporting, Financing, and the Aggregate Economy. The Symposium will be held on October 16th and 17th at the Gleacher Center at the University of Chicago. Conference attendance is by invitation only. 

This symposium is made possible by the generous support of our two sponsors:

The goals of this unique conference are threefold:

• To bring together academics studying the private capital economy to share ideas and present their latest research.
• To allow academics to engage with regulators and practitioners, and hear about and discuss issues facing private firms with the hopes of stimulating new research ideas.
• To help academics interested in researching private firms better understand the setting and give them the opportunity to engage with representatives from private company dataset providers who will also be in attendance. 

The conference includes a fireside chat between Ted Koenig (Chairman and CEO of Monroe Capital) and Steve Kaplan, plus six papers from leading Economics, Finance, and Accounting researchers and two panels. Confirmed panelists include Isil Erel, S.P. Kothari, David Scharfstein, and Amir Sufi (Private Capital panel) and Teresa Fort, Eva Labro, Chad Syverson, and Eric Zwick (Management Practices, Productivity, and Dynamism panel).

Conference Organizing Committee:
Young Soo Jang (Penn State)
Michael Minnis (Chicago Booth)
Amir Sufi (Chicago Booth)
Andrew Sutherland (MIT Sloan)

Conference Steering Committee: 
Matthias Breuer (Columbia University)
Sebnem Kalemi-Ozcan (Brown University)
Steve Kaplan (Chicago Booth)
Scott Stern (MIT Sloan)
David Thesmar (MIT Sloan) 

To register your interest in attending, submit a paper, or ask a question, please email privatefirmsymposium@gmail.com