Vera Rocha is Associate Professor in Economics and Management of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Before, Vera was an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at the same Department and a PostDoc in Economics of Entrepreneurship at the former Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics at Copenhagen Business School.

Vera’s research is at the intersection of entrepreneurship, strategic human capital, and labor market inequality. Most of her work has been focused on the antecedents, processes, and consequences of entrepreneurial activity. Among other questions, Vera has been studying the determinants of career transitions into entrepreneurship, the causes and implications of hiring strategies as firms emerge and mature, how entrepreneurial activity can affect both individual careers and society at large, and how organizations contribute to expand or reduce labor market inequalities, often using matched employer-employee data for Portugal and Denmark.

Vera’s research has been distinguished by several awards and published in highly recognized journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy, Journal of Management Studies, and Organizational Research Methods. At CBS, Vera teaches Entrepreneurship in several Master programs and Applied Econometrics to PhD students.

Vera joined IZA as a Research Affiliate in June 2016 and became an IZA Research Fellow in November 2021.