Quality certification is a common tool to reduce asymmetric information and enhance trust in marketplaces. Should the certificate focus on seller inputs such as fast shipping, or include output measures such as consumer ratings? In theory, incorporating output measures makes the certificate more...

This essay reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on quality disclosure and certification. After comparing quality disclosure with other quality assurance mechanisms and describing a brief history of quality disclosure, we address three key theoretical issues: (i) Why don't sellers...

We first summarize the dominant interpretations of the "frontier" in the United States and predecessor colonies over the past 400 years: agricultural (1610s-1880s), industrial (1890s-1930s), scientific (1940s- 1980s), and algorithmic (1990s-present). We describe the difference between the...

Much recent work in strategy and popular discussion suggests that an excessive focus on "managing the numbers" --delivering quarterly earnings at the expense of longer term investments--makes it difficult for firms to make the investments necessary to build competitive advantage. "Short termism"...

A central challenge in the measurement of entrepreneurship is accounting for the wide variation in entrepreneurial quality across firms. This paper develops a new approach for estimating entrepreneurial quality by linking the probability of a growth outcome (e.g., achieving an IPO or a...