In recent times there has been a renewed interest in relationships between redistribution, growth and welfare. Land reforms have been central to strategies to improve the asset base of the poor in developing countries thought their effectiveness has been hindered by political constraints on...

Strategic patenting is widely believed to raise the costs of innovating, especially in industries characterised by cumulative innovation. This paper studies the effects of strategic patenting on R&D, patenting and market value in the computer software industry. We focus on two key aspects:...

Microsoft has been dominating the market for PC operating systems (OS) for the last two decades. This paper analyzes the decision of firms to standardize on the mainstream OS family and assesses whether upgrading to the latest version within the MS family is a substitute for using niche OS. We...

In this paper, we study the dynamics of the market for Database Management Systems (DBMS), which is commonly assumed to possess network effects and where there is still some viable competition in our study period, 2000 – 2004. Specifically, we make use of a unique and detailed dataset on...

Strategic patenting is widely believed to raise the costs of innovating, especially in industries characterised by cumulative innovation. This paper studies the effects of strategic patenting on R&D, patenting and market value in the computer software industry. We focus on two key aspects:...

Using detailed edit-level data over eight years across a large number of articles on Wikipedia, we find evidence for a positive spillover effect in editing activity. Cumulative past contributions, embodied by the current article length, lead to significantly more editing activity, while...

Governments around the world want to develop their ICT and digital industries. Policymakers thus need a clear sense of the size and characteristics of digital businesses, but this is hard to do with conventional datasets and industry codes. This paper uses innovative ‘big data’ resources to...

This paper presents a game theoretic analysis of the generalized second-price auction that the company Overture operated in 2004 to sell sponsored search listings on search engines. We construct a model that embodies few prior assumptions about parameters, and we present results that indicate...

The determinants of government responsiveness to its citizens is a key issue in political economy. Here we develop a model based on the solution of political agency problems. Having a more informed an politically active electorate strengthens incentives for governments to be responsive. This...