Networking and the giving and receiving of advice outside of one's own firm are important features of entrepreneurship and innovation. We study how immigrants and natives utilize the potential networking opportunities provided by CIC, formerly known as the Cambridge Innovation Center. CIC is...

We analyze persuasion in a model in which each receiver can buy a direct access to the sender's signal or rely on her network connections to get it. For the sender, a higher bias increases the impact per direct receiver, yet diminishes the willingness of agents to receive information. Contrary...

We examine how two highly successful new biotechnology firms (NBFs) source their most critical input -- scientific knowledge. We find that scientists at the two NBFs enter into large numbers of collaborative research efforts with scientists at other organizations, especially universities. Formal...

Entrepreneurs, particularly in the developing world, often hire from their networks: friends, family, and resulting referrals. Network hiring has two benefits, documented extensively in the empirical literature: entrepreneurs know more about the ability of their network (and indeed they are...

Pharmaceutical companies' marketing efforts primarily target physicians, often through individual detailing that entails monetary or in-kind transfers. We study how peer influence broadens these payments' reach beyond the directly paid physicians. Combining Medicare prescriptions and Open...

We study factors influencing individuals' decisions to purchase Citibank stock during the 1920s. Citibank stock had a very high price per share and was only an investment option for wealthy people. The willingness to own shares was encouraged by proximity to New York, but constraints related to...

We explore the links between social capital and labor market networks at the neighborhood level. We harness rich data taken from multiple sources, including matched employer-employee data with which we measure the strength of labor market networks, data on behavior such as voting patterns that...

Social and economic networks are ubiquitous, serving as contexts for job search, technology diffusion, the accumulation of human capital and even the formulation of norms and values. The systematic empirical study of network formation - the process by which agents form, maintain and dissolve...

This research examines the determinants of entrepreneurship in the initial transition from agriculture to industrial production and the subsequent transition to higher value exporting in China. Using data covering the universe of registered firms over the 1994-2009 period, we find that...