I study how entrepreneurship shapes social and economic mobility. I examine when entrepreneurship improves people’s lives, when it reproduces inequality, and how policies and culture influence those outcomes.

My focus is on entrepreneurship as a career, particularly the most common types of ventures: small businesses, family firms, and self-employed workers.

This work has taken me to a range of settings:

• SMEs and street vendors in Mexico
• Family firms in Jordan
• Romani entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic

Peer-reviewed

• Raines, Grady, Peter Polhill, Shon Hiatt, and Ryan Coles (2024). Cultural Norms and the Gendered Impact of Entrepreneurship Policy in Mexico. Administrative Science Quarterly, 69(4), 1006–1043.

  abstract | journal | pdf | ssrn | slides

• Coles, Ryan, Shon Hiatt, Grady Raines, and Wesley Sine (2025). Refugees at the Door: Initial Funding Partners and New Venture Performance in a Changing Emerging Market. Strategic Management Journal.

  abstract | journal | pdf

Working papers

• Grady Raines and Peter Polhill (2026). How Credit Expansion Widened the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurial Survival in Mexico. Under Review.

  abstract | ssrn

• Grady Raines, Peter Polhill, and Wesley Sine. A Field Experiment on Neighborhood Disadvantage and Ethnicity in Entrepreneurial Finance. Under Review.

  2024 AOM OMT Best Paper Proceedings

  abstract | ssrn

• Aharon Mohliver and Grady Raines. How Social Upheaval Shaped Hiring Practices. Working Paper.

  abstract | ssrn

Other

• Sine, Wesley, Grady Raines, and Arkangel Cordero (2025). Institutional Theories of Entrepreneurship. De Gruyter Handbook of Sociology of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Chapter 6, pp. 95–110.

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