We provide a model that explains the following empirical observations: i) private ownership is more efficient than public ownership, ii) privatizations are associated with increases in efficiency and iii) the increase in efficiency predates the privatization. The two key mechanisms explaining...

This paper analyses the properties and the dynamics of the ICT sector as an ecosystem here firms interact, innovate, and compete through bundling and external growth strategies. By exploring the strategies of firms and their relative performances, we show that the allocation of revenue between...

In this article, I empirically examine whether the performance of a chain-affiliated establishment is affected by its organizational form. Using cross-sectional data on the movie theater industry, I find evidence that performance is higher in a company-owned theater than in a franchised one,...

Interpersonal ties facilitate access to resources and ideas. What should be their intensity? And how do the human and social capital of entrepreneurs affect the performance of their projects? We investigated this in the Italian cinema industry in the 1990s, focussing on the director's role....

This paper examines the diversity of the types of links of firms to science and their effect on innovation performance for a sample of Belgian firms. While at the industry level links to science are highly related to the R&D intensity of the sector, we show that there exists considerable...

The purpose of our paper is to examine the profitability and social desirability of both domestic and foreign mergers in a location-quantity competition model, where we allow for the possibility of hollowing-out of the target firm. We refer to hollowing-out as the situation where the target firm...

The standard innovation race specification assumes a memoryless exponential distribution for the time to success of an R&D project. This specification implies that a project succeeds, eventually, with probability one. We introduce a positive probability that an R&D project fails. With this...

Do firms in developing countries shift trade towards developed economies as a result of high economic growth? The matched customs-manufacturing firm data used in this study confront this hypothesized link with empirical evidence. Our analysis reveals a rising low-income country trade share...

This paper discusses the diversity of mechanisms which firms can deploy to link to science and how science links are associated with their innovation performance. Using a sample of Flemish firms, we show that there exists considerable heterogeneity in the type of links to science at the firm...