Innovation is important for firm performance and broader economic growth. But breakthrough innovations necessarily require greater risk-taking than more incremental approaches. To understand how managers respond to uncertainty when making research and development decisions, we conducted three...

Solar technologies have been associated with private and social returns, but their technological potential often remains unachieved because of persistently low demand for high-quality products. In a randomized field experiment in Senegal, we assess the potential of three types of quality...

Science funding agencies such as the NIH, NSF, and their counterparts around the world are often criticized for being too conservative, funding incremental innovations over more radical but riskier projects. One explanation for their conservatism is the way the agencies use peer review of...

Existing theories and empirical research on how innovation occurs largely assume that innovativeness is an inherent characteristic of the individual and that people with this innate ability select into jobs that require it. In this paper, we investigate whether people who do not self-select into...

Innovation is important for firm performance and broader economic growth. But breakthrough innovations necessarily require greater risk-taking than more incremental approaches. To understand how managers respond to uncertainty when making research and development decisions, we conducted three...

A large economics literature seeks to understand the reasons why individuals make charitable contributions. Fundamental features of most models of charitable giving are the inclusion of externalities induced by other agents and the Lancasterian characteristics approach to specifying utility...