Re-coinage implies that old coins are declared invalid and exchanged for new ones at fixed exchange rates and dates. Empirical evidence shows that re-coinage could occur as often as twice a year within a currency area in the Middle Ages. The exchange fee at re-coinage worked as a monetary tax...

Although the leaf-thin bracteates are the most fragile coins in monetary history, they were the main coin type for almost two centuries in large parts of medieval Europe. The usefulness of the bracteates can be linked to the contemporary monetary taxation policy. Medieval coins were frequently...

In medieval Europe, old coins were frequently declared invalid and exchanged for new ones at fixed rates and dates. Here, the question of whether and when such re-coinage was applied in medieval Sweden is analyzed against the historical record. A theory of how short-lived coinage systems work is...

Firms and governments spend billions of dollars on R&D every year. To increase social welfare, the results of R&D must be commercialized so that consumers can benefit from improved products and lower prices. One measure of R&D output is patents; however, most patent databases contain no...

One of the major reasons why inventors are awarded patents by governments is they encourage R&D investments and commercialization of inventions. If the patent holder commercializes his invention, he has stronger incentives to retain the patent. The purpose here is to empirically analyze the...

I apply a survival model to a detailed dataset of Swedish patents to estimate how different factors affect the likelihood of patent renewal. Since the owners know more about the patents than potential external financiers, there is a problem of asymmetric information. To overcome this, Sweden has...

The purpose of this study is to present a unique database on commercialized patents and to illustrate how it can be used to analyze the commercialization process of patents. The dataset is based on a survey of Swedish patents owned by inventors and small firms with a remarkably high response...

Consulting firms (CFs) sell services on a project basis to many clients and must therefore continuously tender for new contracts. One frequently used strategy by CFs is to visit the clients in connection to the tenders. The reason to the visits is either: 1) to influence the client in his...

Government firms and authorities often sell services in the free market via affiliated consulting firms (CFs). In this study, I analyze whether these agents have an unfair competitive edge compared to private CFs. The theoretical analysis shows that private and state-owned CFs operate under...