We live in a ‘zero-risk society', characterized by a culture that is obsessed with controlling and removing any possible risks. Obviously, one of the fundamental objectives of any civilization is to improve the safety and security of its citizens. However, we should not let the cozy comfort...

We view innovation investment as a real option and explore the implications of ambiguity (Knightian uncertainty) and risk for innovation decisions. Our analysis uses a risk measure and a new outcome-independent measure of ambiguity. We find a consistently significant negative effect of ambiguity...

The objective of our paper is to study R&D investments and pricing behavior in an environment with fundamental uncertainty. We designed a multi-period experiment in which each period consisted of two stages, an R&D phase and a pricing stage. Participants in the experiment had almost no...

We study different determinants of real-life R&D decisions within a net present value framework. Besides entry threat, Bertrand competition and multi-stage R&D with an abandonment option, our model includes demand uncertainty, modelled as a lottery. A lottery becomes more divergent when the...

Mission-oriented innovation policies are becoming increasingly popular among policymakers and scholars. We maintain that these policies are based on an overly mechanistic view of innovation and economic growth, suggesting that a more bottom-up approach is called for. By invoking an...

Mission-oriented innovation policies are becoming increasingly popular among policymakers and scholars. We maintain that these policies are based on an overly mechanistic view of innovation and economic growth, suggesting that a more bottom-up approach is called for. By invoking an...

Since the Lisbon Agenda (2000), the European Union policies are increasingly oriented towards innovation as attested to by the deep change of the new Regional Policy. This paper proposes an analysis of an innovation subsidy policy in an agglomeration and growth model à la Martin and Ottaviano...