Short-term performance of a production management system for make-to-stock factories may be quantified through the service rate per shift, long-term performance through the average monthly work in process (WIP). This may yield, for example, that WIP is minimized, while the probability of the...

This essay is the introduction to a forthcoming volume entitled, Regulating Innovation: Competition Policy and Patent Law Under Uncertainty (Cambridge U. Press 2009 forthcoming). In addition to introducing all of the papers in the volume, this essay introduces the organizing themes of the...

We use a narrative method to construct an uncertainty measure based on transnational geopolitical tensions that is plausibly uncorrelated with the existing economic conditions. Increases in geopolitical uncertainty cause a significant reduction in R&D expenditure and patenting activity –...

Commercializing an emerging technology that employs an immature production process can be challenging, particularly when there are many different sources of uncertainty. In industries with stringent safety requirement, regulatory interventions that ensure safety while maintaining incentives for...

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...

Strategic projects are mostly executed by teams of specialists, each of whom are responsible for the completion of specialized, uncertain, and, in many cases, interdependent tasks, i.e. a challenging triad. Unfortunately, senior management can rarely determine, or verifiably measure, the true...

Ever since genes were first patented, the legitimacy and economics of human gene patents have been at the forefront of intense debate. Different stakeholders have expressed concerns about the effect of ‘blocking patents’ or ‘patent thickets’ on genetic technology, arguing that because...