We organized business associations for the owner-managers of randomly selected young Chinese firms to study the effect of business networks on firm performance. We randomized 2,800 firms into small groups whose managers held monthly meetings for one year, and into a "no- meetings" control group....

We provide a general framework for the study of cascade effects created by interconnections between sectors, firms or financial institutions. Focusing on a multi sector economy linked through a supply network, we show how structural properties of the supply network determine both whether...

Research on intellectual property has focused on formal legally recorded rights that we call deeded, most often measured by granted patents. Meanwhile, other "defacto" IP (mainly purposive secrecy and natural excludability) has become more important because of the increasing closeness of...

When startup innovation involves a potentially disruptive technology - initially lagging in the predominant performance metric, but with a potentially favorable trajectory of improvement - incumbents may be wary of engaging in cooperative commercialization with the startup. While the prevailing...

Technological progress builds upon itself, with the expansion of invention in one domain propelling future work in linked fields. Our analysis uses 1.8 million U.S. patents and their citation properties to map the innovation network and its strength. Past innovation network structures are...

There is great interest in evaluating the impact of private equity investments on innovation and economic growth. However, there is no direct empirical evidence on the effects of such transactions on the innovation strategies of entrepreneurial firms. We fill this gap by examining a rich...

While the variability of public equity financing has been long recognized, its impact on firms has attracted little empirical scrutiny. This paper examines one setting where theory suggests that variations in financing conditions should matter, alliances between small R&D firms and major...

This paper extends the existing theory and empirical investigation of unitization contracts. It highlights the importance of incentive-compatibility and self-enforcement and the bargaining problems faced in achieving viable, long-term contracts. We argue that only if the parties to a unitization...

Relative performance evaluation (RPE) intensifies competitive pressure by tying executive compensation to the profits of rivals. We show that these contracts make loan syndication harder by reducing banks' willingness to participate in loans underwritten by banks named in their RPE contracts....

We study relational contracts among managers using unique data that tracks transfers of workers across teams in Indian ready-made garment factories. We focus on how relational contracts help managers cope with worker absenteeism shocks, which are frequent, often large, weakly correlated across...