How does patent examination influence access to finance for innovative firms? We exploit a reform to the UK's patent system that introduced substantive examination to the patent application process, improving the information available to potential investors on the value of firms' patents. Using...

Awards are widely used as incentives. This paper situates awards in the broader incentives landscape and shows how the motivational value of awards can be understood through a framework that considers three sources of value: the tangible component of an award, the social signals it emits, and...

Economists and management scholars have argued that the scope of incentives to increase cooperation in organizations is limited as their use signals the prevalence of free-riding among employees. This paper tests this hypothesis experimentally, using a sample of managers and employees from a...

A pre-condition for employer learning is that signals at labor market entry do not fully reveal graduates' productivity. I model various distinct sources of signal imperfection-such as noise and multi-dimensional types-and characterize their implications for the private return to skill...

This paper uses Nash equilibrium reversion as an optimal tool for clearing dynamic prices and wages. Various exogenous competitive rigidities determine the balanced growth path of the efficiency wage and the outcome of repeated household/firm wage bargaining decisions. A location model is used...

How does patent examination influence access to finance for innovative firms? We exploit a reform to the UK's patent system that introduced substantive examination to the patent application process, improving the information available to potential investors on the value of firms' patents. Using...

Competition authorities increasingly rely on economic screening tools to identify markets where firms deviate from competitive norms. Traditional screening methods assume that collusion occurs through secret agreements. However, recent research highlights that firms can use public announcements...

Despite the acknowledged importance of capital for start-up success, gender disparities persist when trying to raise funds from external sources, including angel investors, venture capitalists, and financial institutions. Many studies have shown that gender stereotypes are harmful and prevent...

We analyze a principal-agent procurement problem in which the principal (she) is unaware some of the marginal cost types of the agent (he). Communication arises naturally as some types of the agent may have an incentive to raise the principal's awareness (totally or partially) before a contract...

We consider a principal who wishes to screen an agent with discrete types by offering a menu of discrete quantities and discrete transfers. We assume that the principal's valuation is discrete strictly concave and use a discrete first-order approach. We model the agent's cost types as...

This study examines the nexus between Google Trends’ collective interest in specific keywords related to technological advancements utilized in design and the stock performance of major companies in design-related sectors. Specifically, the paper examines causality patterns between Google...

How best to incentivise disclosure? We study this question in a general model in which a technological breakthrough occurs at an uncertain time and is privately observed by an agent, and a principal must incentivise disclosure via her control of a payoff-relevant physical allocation. We uncover...

This study examines the impact of corporate sustainable tax strategies on investment scale and firm value using signaling theory. We measure Sustainable tax strategy through the coefficient of variation of cash effective tax rates over a five-year period. Using 3121 firm-year observations of...

Consumers increasingly value the environmental and social responsibility of the production processes used by firms, yet these processes often remain unobservable, even after consumption. In this paper, we develop a simple model to examine firms’ technology choices and subsequent price...

We revisit the classic chain-store paradox by introducing a novel element: the arrival of exogenous, public signals about the incumbent's private type over time. As the horizon lengthens, two opposing forces come into play. On one hand, standard reputational incentives grow stronger; on the...

We experimentally evaluate three behavioral models of expectation formation that predict overreaction to new information: overconfidence in private signals, misperceptions about the persistence of the data-generating process (DGP), and diagnostic expectations. In our main experiment,...

Announcing a large fiscal stimulus may signal the government's pessimism about the severity of a recession to the private sector, impairing the stabilizing effects of the policy. Using a theoretical model, we show that these signaling effects occur when the stimulus exceeds expectations and are...