This paper analyses an entry timing game with uncertain entry costs. Two firms receive costless signals about the cost of a new project and decide when to invest. We characterize the equilibrium of the investment timing game with private and public signals. We show that competition leads the two...

This study identifies information accessibility as a determinant of corporate innovation. Using the sudden termination of Google's search services in China, we find a persistently large negative effect on the intensity and quality of innovation among firms relying on foreign technology. The...

We study information disclosure and diversification in contests with technological uncertainty, where agents can pursue different technologies to compete in the contest, but there is uncertainty regarding which will be implemented ex post. The principal can credibly reveal some information about...

We analyze the sustainability of a conversation when one agent might be endowed with a piece of private information that affects the payoff distribution to its benefit. Such a secret can compromise the sustainability of conversation. Even without an obligation, the secret holder will disclose...

In the economics profession there is a fierce debate whether industrial and innovation policy should be targeted to specific sectors or firms. This paper discusses the welfare effects of such targeted policies from the perspective of strategic game theory of the firm. A theoretical case for...

An innovative firm with private information about its indivisible process innovation chooses strategically whether to apply for a patent with probabilistic validity or rely on secrecy. By doing so, the firm manages its rivals' beliefs about the size of the innovation, and affects the incentives...

The decision to cooperate within R&D joint ventures is often based on expert advice such advice typically originates in a due diligence process, which assesses the R&D joint ventures profitability, for example, by appraising the achievability of synergies. We show that if the experts who advise...

This study investigates the effects of information asymmetry on shareholder participation. We find that a drop in analyst coverage following brokerage house closures and mergers is associated with an increase in the number of shareholder proposals. This effect is more pronounced for firms with...

The immediate expensing of R&D expenditures conceals managers' knowledge about the R&D projects. I examine whether higher R&D-intensive firms voluntarily guide more to decrease this information asymmetry. R&D state tax credits serve as instrumental variable for R&D investments. While total...

We examine a license contract in a vertically separated market in the presence of a competitor's challenge and information asymmetry. When technology's value is not observable, innovators with more valuable technology disclose their private information to receive a fair payment despite a rival's...