Miscoordination of buyers might prevent entry in an industry with an incumbent and a more efficient potential entrant. Buyers' power therefore favours entry by eliminating coordination problems. We also identify a mechanism which facilitates entry: if the potential entrant could credibly offer...

This Paper examines which firms from a heterogeneous pool are more likely to join together and form a research joint venture (RJV). It differs from previous contributions as it introduces a set of realistic hypothesis on the characteristics of research co-operation and information sharing....

We describe new ideas as incomplete concepts for which the innovator needs feedback from agents with complementary skills. Once shared, ideas may be stolen. We compare how different contractual environments support invention and implementation. Markets, as open exchange systems, are good for...

The incremental innovations that underlie much of modern economic growth typically involve changes to one or more components of a complex product. This creates a tension. On the one hand, a principal would like an agent to contribute innovative components. On the other hand, ironing out...

We examine the relationships between productivity growth, IT investment and organisational change (DO) using UK firm data. Consistent with the small number of other micro studies we find (a) IT appears to have high returns in a growth accounting sense when DO is omitted; when DO is included the IT...

The aim of this paper is to provide a tractable model where both socialization (or network formation) and productive efforts can be analyzed simultaneously. This permits a full-fledged equilibrium/welfare analysis of network formation with endogenous productive efforts and heterogeneous agents....

We study two-stage political contests with private entry costs. We show that these political contests could be ineffective, namely, the chance of low ability candidates participating in the contest might be higher than the chance of high ability candidates participating in the contest (and...

To study the short-run and long-run implications on wage inequality, we introduce directed technical change into a Ricardian model of offshoring. A unique final good is produced by combining a skilled and an unskilled product, each produced from a continuum of intermediates (tasks). Some of...

Patent holders may choose to protect innovations with single patents or to develop portfolios of multiple, related inventions. We propose a simple decision-making model in which patent-holders may allocate resources to either expanding the number of related patents or investing in higher value...