Recent studies of sectoral specialisation and technological development across market economies have shown how contrasting patterns of technical change can be explained by the different institutional frameworks that have become established in distinct types of economy (see, e.g., Casper, 2000;...

The bidder who wins at an auction may end up paying more for an asset than it is actually worth. This, stated very simply, is the so-called winner's curse. Consider the simplest possible case where the asset has the same actual value to all bidders, but bidders do not know for certain what that...

In this paper we examine the theoretical conditions under which a firm will have incentives to optimallychoose investment projects of duration that deviates from its stated horizon objective. Our approachconsiders a context in which investment horizon is subject to randomness and its length is...

The aim of the present work is to study the evolution of organizational knowledge within Academic Spin-off (ASO) firms throughout their life cycle. The exploitation of tacit and indivisible new knowledge developed in the context of academic institutions entails agency problems of different...

We test the hypotheses that, in presence of financial constraints, a low leverage policy directed at maintaining financial flexibility can affect company investment. Low leverage is defined according to deviations from target which are estimated via GMS-SYS. Our analysis reveals that, following...

This paper analyses the process of knowledge growth in a branch of medical science. Our study of scientific advances in glaucoma research is organized in two parts. In the first we present a qualitative overview of the problem sequences that have characterized 150 years of medical research in...

This paper is about the implications of a nation’s approach to defence procurement for its national innovation system and the innovation that occurs within it. Defence procurement involves choices over what is to be purchased (the product), from whom it should be bought (the producer), and how...

Departing from a number of theoretical perspectives from which rationales for science,technology and innovation (STI) policy can be extracted, this paper discusses threequestions. First, what rationales for public intervention can be derived from differenteconomic theories, including theories...

Interaction between private and public organisations is a fundamental source of innovation and a crucial framing condition for reaping the benefits of new technologies through their diffusion in regulated domains. With a focus on the health sector, in this essay we investigate the emergence of...

Innovation policy has become tremendously differentiated. This is to some extent a consequence of a more systematic understanding of the innovation process as described in innovation system approaches (see Chaminade/Edquist 2008), which has led to a broad understanding of functions of innovation...