Performance is the lifeblood of a firm's management. Performance itself depends on the adaptation of strategy, based on learning and the environment. An important way that firms adapt their strategy is through imitation or mimetic isomorphism. Imitation implies a referent for such adaptations....

Empirical evidence on industry life-cycle reveals a pattern in which innovation rates remain fairly stable or are perhaps even higher at early stages, while patenting increases sharply as the industry matures. This increase in patenting in later stages is accompanied by net exit and lower rates...

Under the assumption of perfect competition, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that abandoned properties and long undeveloped neighborhoods remain that way because they are unprofitable. In contrast, this paper introduces a model in which firms systematically overlook neighborhoods with...

This paper constructs a simple endogenous growth model featuring the product cycle, i.e., the transition from monopoly to perfect competition, and studies its implications for both asset market and business cycle statistics. I find that the product cycle is a powerful amplification mechanism;...

We employ a North-South endogenous growth model with two factors of production in which the North invents new pro ducts and the South imitates. We use this model to explore the impact of stronger IPRs on interregional as well as intraregional distribution of welfare. We find that the overall...

The aim of this paper is to highlight the positive and important role that skilled migration can have on TFP growth in the sendind countries, when diaspora effects in technology diffusion are introduced. To investigate our issue, we start from a previous paper by Vandenbussche, Aghion and Costa...

This volume was prepared by Sebastian Benz while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in December 2013 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes five self-contained chapters. All chapters discuss different...