Inflation persists at moderate rates of 15-30 percent in all the countries that successfully reduced triple digit inflations in the 1980s. Several other countries, for example Colombia, have experienced moderate inflation for prolonged periods. In this paper we first set out theories of...

This paper, which introduces the special issue on corporate governance co-sponsored by the Review of Financial Studies and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), reviews and comments on the state of corporate governance research. The special issue features seven papers on corporate...

Might the dollar eventually follow the precedent of the pound and cede its status as leading international reserve currency? Unlike ten years ago, there now exists a credible competitor: the euro. This paper econometrically estimates determinants of the shares of major currencies in the reserve...

Intelligently allocating research effort and funds requires deciding whether to build on recent advances or on more established knowledge. When recent advances create superior opportunities for invention, their adoption as research inputs in the invention process promotes technological progress....

We develop a model of induced innovation where research effort is a function of the death rate, and thus the potential to reduce deaths in the population. We also consider potential social consequences that arise from this form of induced innovation based on differences in disease prevalence...

We investigate rewards to R&D in a model where substitute ideas for innovation arrive to random recipients at random times. By foregoing investment in a current idea, society as a whole preserves an option to invest in a better idea for the same market niche, but with delay. Because successive...

We study favoritism via hometown ties, a common source of favor exchange in China, in fellow selection of the Chinese Academies of Sciences and Engineering. Hometown ties to fellow selection committee members increase candidates' election probability by 39 percent, coming entirely from the...

A well-developed theoretical literature — dating back at least to Nordhaus (1969) — has analyzed optimal patent policy design. We re-present the core trade-off of the Nordhaus model and highlight an empirical question which emerges from the Nordhaus framework as a key input into optimal...