We examine the impact of individual-level motives upon innovative effort and performance in firms. Drawing from economics and social psychology, we develop a model of the impact of individuals' motives and incentives upon their innovative effort and performance. Using data on over 11,000...

Debates have long centered around the relative merits of prizes and other incentives for technological innovation. Some economists have cited the experience of the prestigious Royal Society of Arts (RSA), which offered honorary and cash awards, as proof of the efficacy of innovation prizes. The...

Are CEOs' attitudes and beliefs linked to their fims' innovative performance? This paper uses Malmendier and Tate's measure of overconfidence, based on CEO stock-option exercise, to study the relationship between a CEO's "revealed beliefs" about future performance and standard measures of...

This paper studies a simple model of experimentation and innovation. Our analysis suggests that patents may improve the allocation of resources by encouraging rapid experimentation and efficient ex post transfer of knowledge across firms. Each firm receives a private signal on the success...