We analyse the determinants of the decline in research productivity using panel data on manufacturing firms in the US for the period 1980-93. We focus on three factors: the level of demand, the quality of patents and technological exhaustion. We develop an index of patent 'quality' using...

We explore the substitutability of formal and informal property rights using new survey data from Ecuador, where households have both formal and informal claims to urban residential property. We develop a model of property transactions that distinguishes between transferable and...

We analyse the welfare effects of policies that intensify product market competition, and the channels through which they operate. Using a circular model of horizontal product differentiation with asymmetric costs, we study the effects of increased price competition on market selection among...

We show how microeconomic data on investment plans can be used to study the structure of risk firms face. Revisions of investment plans form a martingale and reveal the underlying shocks driving investment. We decompose revisions in investment plans into micro, sector and aggregate shocks, and...