Discussions of the economic impact of open source software often generate more heat than light. Advocates passionately assert the benefits of open source while critics decry its effects. Missing from the debate is rigorous economic analysis and systematic economic evidence of the impact of open...

Since the 2008-09 global financial crises, interest among policy makers in promoting innovative, ventures has exploded. The emerging great hubs of entrepreneurial activity, like Bangalore, Dubai, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Singapore, and Tel Aviv, bear the unmistakable stamp of the public sector....

Since the 2008-09 global financial crises, interest among policy makers in promoting innovative, high-potential ventures has exploded. The emerging great hubs of entrepreneurial activity, like Bangalore, Dubai, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Singapore, and Tel Aviv, bear the unmistakable stamp of the...

The returns that institutional investors realize from private equity investments differ dramatically across institutions. Using detailed and hitherto unexplored records of fund investors and performance, we document large heterogeneity in the performance of different classes of limited partners....

This paper presents a theory of liquidity where we explicitly model the liquidity of the security as a choice variable, which enables the manager raising the funds to screen for quot;deep pocketquot; investors, i.e. these that have a low likelihood of a liquidity shock. By choosing the degree of...

Financial economists in recent years have closely examined and intensely debated the performance of initial public offerings using data after the formation of NASDAQ. The paper seeks to shed light on this controversy by undertaking a large, out-of-sample study: we examine the performance for up...

This paper examines the positive impact of the inflows of capital into venture funds on the valuations of their investments in firms and two potential explanations for the relationship. Growth in venture capital commitments is shown to increase the valuation of new investments. This effect is...

In this paper we investigate potential conflicts of interest in the issuance of public securities in a setting analogous to a universal bank, i.e., the underwriting of initial public offerings by investment banks that hold equity in a firm through a venture capital subsidiary. We contrast two...

There has been a recent surge of interest in open source software development, which involves developers at many different locations and organizations sharing code to develop and refine programs. To an economist, the behavior of individual programmers and commercial companies engaged in open...