Celine Yue FEI
Welcome!

Department of Economics,
University of Mannheim
Contact Information:
L 7, 3–5 – Room 341 (3rd floor)
68161 Mannheim
​Email: [email protected]

My research focuses on understanding the funding for startups, private firms, and small businesses. I study how venture capital and private equity firms make investments as well as the role of fintech lending and AI in finance. I am teaching Financial Economics (undergrad), Fintech and AI in Finance (master), and seminars on Sustainable Finance, AI in Economics at Mannheim.

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Research Areas
  • Venture Capital
  • ​Private Equity
  • ​Fintech and AI in Finance
  • ​Sustainable Finance
  • Corporate Finance

I obtained my Ph.D. in Economics from Toulouse School of Economics in 2020. I was a postdoctoral research associate in the Kenan Institute of Private Capital and Finance Area at Kenan-Flagler Business School of UNC at Chapel Hill before joining Univerisity of Mannheim.
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Working Papers
Portfolio Management in Private Equity, with Gregory W. Brown and David T. Robinson R&R at Journal of Financial Economics (JFE)
NBER Working Paper No. w31664
  • Selected Presentations: 2023 AFA, 2023 FIRS, 2023 Columbia Private Equity Conference (*), 2023 Mitsui Finance Symposium (Michigan Ross), 2023 Summer Institute of Finance Conference (Shanghai Jiao Tong SAIF), 2023 Lapland Investment Fund Summit​ (Aalto)​, 2023 SKEMA Corporate Restructuring Conference, ​2022 Finance, Organizations and Markets Conference (USC Marshall), 2022 WashU St. Louis Annual Conference on Corporate Finance (*), 2022 UNC Annual Private Equity Research Consortium ​(*), 2022 Conference on Financial Economics and Accounting​​ (GSU), 2022 Society of Quantitative Analysts conference (*), 2021 IPC Research Symposium (*)
  • ​Matlab Code
Abstract: Private equity investments are typically made through closed-end fund structures that tie performance-based compensation together across investments. This creates incentives for portfolio formation considerations to affect investment decisions. With novel, deal-level data covering a large sample of global investments, we show that these portfolio considerations are important for understanding investment behavior and fund returns. The largest investments in PE funds typically have the lowest returns on average but are also the least risky. Returns and risk are both increasing in industry concentration. Later investments are safer when they follow early successes, suggesting that GPs act on incentives to ''lock in'' early performance-based compensation. These findings show that GPs use portfolio construction, not just deal selection, to seek risk-adjusted fund-level returns.
​* Presented by coauthor​
What Drives Racial Minorities to Use Fintech Lending? R&R  Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (JFQA)​
  • Selected Presentations: ​2021 NBER Entrepreneurship Working Group, 2023 MFA, 2023 Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance Annual Conference, 2023 OFR Rising Scholar Conference, 2023 University of Oregon Summer Finance Conference​
  • Python Code
​ Abstract: Using a national sample of Paycheck Protection Program restaurants, I find evidence of a more negative minority-non-minority rating gap for fintech lenders, which suggests taste-based discrimination of Becker (1957). To quantify various channels' magnitude, I estimate an empirical matching model where I find that fintech-minority matches generate more value than other matches. Moreover, this fintech-minority additional value channel is the most important channel in explaining racial disparities in fintech usage. Disabling this channel reduces minority borrowers' usage of fintech by approximately 70%. Disabling lending relationships and bank branch channels only reduces minority borrowers' usage of fintech by less than 2%.
Directed Financing of Innovation: From IPO Reforms to Venture Capital, with Ulrich Hege, Xiao Jia, Xuelin Li
Draft available upon request.
Presentations: 2025 AFA-AFFECT Workshop, Mannheim Brownbag, 2025 MaCCI IO Day, 2025 ENTFIN, (*), 2025 Aarhus Workshop on Strategic Interaction in Corporate Finance, 2025 6th International ZEW Conference on the Dynamics of Entrepreneurship (scheduled). 

Can Government Foster the Development of Venture Capital?
Best Paper Award at 2022 China International Forum on Finance and Policy (CIFFP)


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Non-Peer Reviewed Publications

Chapter on Entrepreneurial Finance, ​with Xiaoyun Yu
Sage Handbook of China Economy and Financial System​ (Forthcoming in 2026)
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Work-in-Progress

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Journal Referees
Management Science, ​Review of Financial Studies, ​Journal of Corporate Finance, ​Journal of Banking and Finance, ​Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

​Teaching

University of Mannheim: Financial Economics (undergrad)
University of Mannheim: Fintech and AI in Finance (master), seminars on Sustainable Finance, AI in Economics
University of Mannheim: undergraduate and master thesis supervision, with the focus on venture capital, AI in finance, and sustainable finance
UNC Kenan-Flagler: Corporate Finance BUSI408 (undergrad); evaluation 4.6/5
Toulouse School of Economics (TA): Macroeconomics PhD Core, Macroeconomics (undergrad), Econometrics (undergrad)
​Discussion [Link]


RUNC  Research with Longleaf