US military Research and Development (R&D) expenditures arguably represent the best example of mission-oriented policy. They are sizeable, with a clear-cut public purpose (national defense) and with the government being their exclusive beneficiary. Exploiting a longitudinal dataset linking...

This empirical paper analyses the importance of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the technological diversification trend among the world's largest manufacturing firms during the 1980s and 1990s. The objective of the research is twofold: firstly, to emphasise the emerging...

In this paper we propose a new mental representation of how markets, technology and their interaction concur in explaining the why of a certain innovation instead of another. We empirically test this theory in the telecommunication switches industry. We consider innovation as a new alignment of...

Innovation is one of the usual suspects in defining differences in performance among firms, according to a strong and diverse theoretical framework. Understanding the diversity that exists within the population of innovative firms is essential to elaborate appropriate innovation policies. Our...

Increasing evidence indicates that a large share of granted patents are ''undeserved'' because they do not meet the criteria of novelty or non-obviousness. In recent decades, many jurisdictions introduced patent reforms to avoid weak patent applications and improve legal patent quality. In...

This paper extends the endogenous-growth agent-based model in Fagiolo& Dosi (2003) to study the finance-growth nexus. We explore industries where firms produce a homogeneous good using existing technologies, perform R&D activities to introduce new techniques, and imitate the most productive...