We analyze the roles of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists (VC), and the government in financing fundamental innovations, defined as those with positive social value net of development costs, but negative net present values to innovating firms. We first analyze the case where the entrepreneur,...

Fundamental innovation usually involves huge upfront costs, but the benefits are spread across various sectors of the economy. Given the large costs and limited appropriability of the benefits associated with fundamental innovations, individual firms underinvest in these innovations relative to...

Using data on anti-takeover provisions (ATPs) and top management characteristics hand-collected from IPO prospectuses, we analyze the effect of the pre-IPO innovativeness and the top management quality of private firms on the number and strength of ATPs in IPO firm charters. We test the...