We address the problem faced by innovators who have an idea for a marketable product but must hire employees to bring the product to the market. Information leakage implies that newly-hired employees become informed of the idea and may attempt to bring the product to the market themselves. We...

In this Paper we analyse the effects of information leakage on the incentives to innovate in firms. We analyse a situation in which an employee in a firm is inspired with a new idea for a product. In a framework in which Intellectual Property Rights on ideas are absent, we analyse the...

We develop a theory of the rent distribution and stability of innovative firms. Our theory is based on a model of bargaining over new ideas. The model accounts for the problem of information leakage, namely, the diffusion of information about new ideas among the agents that participate in the...

We analyze the relation between religious beliefs, religious participation, and social cooperation. We focus on religions that instill beliefs about the connection between rewards and punishments and social behavior. We show how religious organizations arise endogenously, and identify a...

We analyze a dynamic model of agenda formation in which players compete in each period to put their ideal policies on the agenda. In each period, with some probability, a decision maker is called upon to take an action from the agenda. We show that in any Markov equilibrium of this game, players...