We find that the enforcement of noncompete clauses significantly impedes entrepreneurship and employment growth. Based on a panel of metropolitan areas in the United States from 1993 to 2002, our results indicate that, relative to states that enforce noncompete covenants, an increase in the...

A growing body of research documents the role that organizational learning plays in improving firm performance over time. To date, however, this literature has given limited attention to the effect that the internal structure of the firm can have on generating differences in these learning...

Although many streams of literature have recognized that firms with broader scope often underperform those with greater focus, relatively little research has examined the mechanisms that might account for these diseconomies of scope. One potential mechanism is that uncertainty shocks -- events...

Using panel data on the Danish population, we estimated the revealed preferences of scientists and engineers for the places in which they choose to work. Our results indicate that these technical workers exhibit substantial sensitivity to differences in wages but that they have even stronger...

We find that the public funding of academic research and venture capital have a complementary relationship in fostering innovation and the creation of new firms. Using panel data on metropolitan areas in the United States, from 1993 to 2002, our analyses reveal that the positive relationships...

Using a panel of U.S. metropolitan areas, we find that increases in the supply of venture capital positively affect firm starts, employment, and aggregate income. Our results remain robust to a variety of specifications, including ones that address endogeneity. The estimated magnitudes imply...

The theory of resource partitioning proposes that competition among generalists in the center of a market can trigger a process of resource release that engenders a proliferation of specialist producers outside the center. Previous research has generally examined the relationship between this...

Many theories either implicitly or explicitly assume that individuals readily move to locations that improve their financial well being. Other forces, however, counteract these tendencies; for example, people often wish to remain close to family and friends. We introduce a methodology for...