This paper investigates the determinants of real interest rates at world and country level. The starting point is the idea that the real interest rates reflect the interaction of desired saving and planned investment, using the framework developed by Barro and Sala-i- Martin (1990) and Barro (1992).

We consider optimal investment behavior for a firm facing both technological and economic uncertainty, in the context of a research project with unpredictable outcomes. The optimal investment strategy, in the form of a pair of trigger points for investment and abandonment, is derived. As in...

Producing high technology output and supplying sophisticated services often involves costly investment in industry specific skills. But the threat of poaching means that it is the individual "stakeholder", not the firm, who must bear the cost. We investigate various mechanisms for funding human...

Previous work on the property rights theory of the firm suggests that in the presence of outside options, asset ownership may demotivate managers. This paper shows that this conclusion relies on the assumption that a manager's outside option only depends on her own investment.

This paper considers irreversible investment in competing research projects with uncertain returns under a winner-takes-all patent system. Uncertainty takes two distinct forms: the technological success of the project is probabilistic, while the economic value of the patent to be won evolves...