The incredible profits of Initial Public Offerings have often been emphasized in the media as a popular investment for the public. This paper takes a few steps towards refuting such an assertion by investigating the performance of 2,895 venture capital backed IPOs between 1968 and September...

We analyze the joint dynamics of religious beliefs, scientific progress and coalitional politics along both religious and economic lines. History offers many examples of the recurring tensions between science and organized religion, but as part of the paper's motivating evidence we also uncover...

What is the optimal system of intellectual property rights to encourage innovation? Empirical evidence from economic history can help to inform important policy questions that have been difficult to answer with modern data: 1) Does the existence of strong patent laws encourage innovation? And 2)...

Although technological change is vital for economic growth, the interaction of finance and technological innovation is rarely studied. This pioneering volume examines the ways in which innovation is funded in the United States. In case studies and theoretical discussions, leading economists and...

Although technological change is vital for economic growth, the interaction of finance and technological innovation is rarely studied. This pioneering volume examines the ways in which innovation is funded in the United States. In case studies and theoretical discussions, leading economists and...

This paper presents a History Friendly Model which addresses the issue of the bifurcation in "technological styles" between US and Britain during the nineteenth century. The model aims at gaining a better understanding of the micro-dynamics that gave rise to different patterns of innovation in...

This paper investigates the impact of ¡§learning-by-producing¡¨ on inventive activity and shows that, in both emerging (electrical equipment and supplies) and maturing (shoes and textiles) industries, the geographic association between invention and production was rather weak during the...