Using 23-year panel data of cross-border venture capital investment and global air network expansion as a natural experiment, this paper investigates the effect of air travel on cross-border capital mobility. We find international airlines have a significant facilitating effect on venture capital mobility. Based on the difference-in-differences estimate, for our research period one additional flight per day leads to an increase in VC investment between the city pair by 0.14 deals on average per year (1.08 times the mean value). The heterogeneous analysis indicates that, with more air connections, emerging industries and firms in earlier developmental stages receive more investment, and non-syndication investment increases more than syndication investment. In addition, we find the effect significantly increases with geographical distance: city pairs that are far away from each other experience a larger increase in VC flow after flight connections exist. Lastly, the evidence suggests that most of this increase in capital flows happens in wealthier cities. Connections between poor cities show little effect on VC flow. The paper presents evidence on the role of the global air network in reducing information transmission cost and raising the expectation for future growth potential. All results are shown to be robust using alternative VC investment measures and the regression discontinuity method.

本文以23年跨境风险投资和全球航空网络扩展的面板数据为自然实验，研究了航空旅行对跨境资本流动的影响。我们发现国际航空公司对风险投资的流动性具有显着的促进作用。根据差异差异估算，在我们的研究期间，每天增加一班航班导致两对城市之间的风险投资平均每年增加0.14笔交易（平均值的1.08倍）。异质分析表明，随着更多的空中交通，新兴行业和处于发展初期的公司获得了更多的投资，并且非联合投资的增长超过了联合投资。此外，我们发现效果随着地理距离而显着增加：建立航班连接后，相距较远的城市对的VC流量会大幅增加。最后，证据表明，资本流动的增加大部分发生在较富裕的城市。贫困城市之间的联系对风险资本流几乎没有影响。本文提供了有关全球空中网络在降低信息传输成本和提高对未来增长潜力的期望中的作用的证据。使用替代的VC投资方法和回归不连续性方法，所有结果均显示出稳健性。本文提供了有关全球空中网络在降低信息传输成本和提高对未来增长潜力的期望中的作用的证据。使用替代的VC投资方法和回归不连续性方法，所有结果均显示出稳健性。本文提供了有关全球空中网络在降低信息传输成本和提高对未来增长潜力的期望中的作用的证据。使用替代的VC投资方法和回归不连续性方法，所有结果均显示出稳健性。