An extensive empirical literature indicates that, even without formal intellectual property rights, innovators enjoy a variety of first-mover advantages and that `imitation' is itself a costly activity. There is also accumulating evidence that an `open' approach to knowledge production can...

We examine pollution-reducing R&D by a monopoly firm producing a dirty product. In a dynamic framework with hyperbolic discounting, we establish conditions under which the Porter hypothesis goes through, i.e. environmental regulation increases R&D, thus reducing pollution, as well as increasing...

The traditional argument that shorter product cycles favor trade secret over patenting is reviewed. A game theoretic model provides an argument that shorter product cycles can induce firms to file more patent applications. The firms may be trapped in a prisoners' dilemma where all firms would...

In the ICT sector, product-software is an important factor for the quality of the products (e.g. cell phones). In this context, open source software enables firms to avoid quality competition as they can cooperate on quality without an explicit contract. The economics of open source (OS) versus...

This paper investigates the macroeconomic importance of credit rationing and whether banks use characteristics such as ownership structure and institutional type of borrowers in order to regulate the risk of loaned funds. To test this, monthly data for 2000–2002, extracted from the National...

This paper analyses how rising agricultural prices affect heterogenous farm production and access to inputs under credit market imperfections in the CEE transition countries. Using the FADN farm level panel data, which contains 37416 observations for 2004 and 2005, we estimate a farm credit...

This paper uses a model with transaction costs and imperfect competition in the land market to analyze the efficiency and welfare effects of land reforms. We show that removing only one imperfection may have very different efficiency and welfare effects than would otherwise result from reforms...

Spinoffs frms are an important source of industry dynamics and innovation. While an emerging body of literature identifies strategic disagreements and ideas as determinants of spinoffs, neither of them can completely explain the spinoff process. Mere disagreements or brilliant flashes of ideas...

One of the most conspicuous features of mergers is that they come in waves that are correlated with increases in share prices and price/earnings ratios. We use a natural way to discriminate between pure stock market influences on firm decisions and other influences by examining merger patterns...

We enquiry about the effects of first and second order stochastic dominance shifts of the distribution of the consumers’ willingness to pay, within the standard model of a market with network externalities and hump-shaped demand curve. This issue is analyzed in the polar cases of perfect...