Higher country taxes on noxious manufacturing emissions lead to substantial increases in firm R&D spending. The R&D response is driven entirely by the high-pollution firms most affected by emissions taxes. Pollution taxes increase the market value of R&D spending in polluting firms, even when...

We study the effects of a unique lending program initiated by the Swedish government at the height of the financial crisis that allowed firms to suspend payment of all labor-related taxes and fees. Comprehensive administrative data on all Swedish firms show that firms borrowing from the program...

The high-tech sector accounts for the majority of corporate innovation in modern economies. In a sample of 38 countries, we document a strong positive relation between the initial size of the country's high-tech sector and subsequent rates of GDP and total factor productivity growth. We also...

We study how access to private equity financing affects real firm activities using a broad panel of publicly traded U.S. firms that raise external equity through private placements (PIPEs) between 1995 and 2008. The public firms relying on PIPEs are generally small, high-tech firms that cannot...

We explore the importance of new public firms and public equity finance for R&D and creative destruction in the U.S. high-tech sector. Between 1970 and 2004 over 1900 new public firms enter a small number of high-tech industries, substantially altering the focus of U.S. manufacturing and...

We study how firms engaged in both R&D and fixed investment manage liquidity and adjust real investment during the recent financial crisis. Among firms with positive R&D expenditures, cuts to fixed investment in the crisis are typically far more severe than cuts to R&D. These firms allocate cash...