Private Equity and Entrepreneurial Finance, volume 1 of the new series, Handbook of the Economics of Corporate Finance, provides comprehensive and accessible updates of central theoretical and empirical issues in corporate finance. The demand for these updates reflects the rapid evolution of corporate finance research, which has become a dominant field in financial economics. The chapters are written by leading researchers and experts that remain active in their respective areas of interest. These are intended to make the economics of corporate finance and governance accessible not only to doctoral students but also researchers not intimately familiar with this important field.