This paper studies how the creation of (ex ante) benchmarks and rankings can be used to provide information in financial markets. Although an investor cannot precisely estimate the future returns of an entrepreneur’s projects, the investor can mitigate the incomplete information problem by...

Numerous attempts have been made to identify the optimal mix of patent breadth and patent life. Unfortunately, the range of contradictory results reported in literature is rather impressive. The aim of this note is to develop a very stylised model that encompasses a variety of different...