Most existing models of employee spinoffs assume they are driven by a desire to implement new ideas. However, history is replete with examples of spinoffs that were launched to continue with old ideas that their parents were in the process of abandoning. We develop a model of technology choice...

A growing empirical literature on spinoff formation has begun to reveal some striking regularities about which firms are most likely to spawn spinoffs, when they are most likely to spawn them, and the relationship between the quality of the parent firm and its spinoffs. Deeper investigations...

This paper develops a model of marital dissolution based on communication difficulties. The quality of a marriage depends on the proximity of an action to a target. The target is unknown, and must be learned over time. Each individual receives private signals about the target, and can...

The last fifty years have witnessed large secular increases in educational attainment and R&D intensity. The fact that these trends have not stimulated more rapid income growth has been a persistent puzzle for growth theorists. We construct a model of endogenous economic growth in which income...

Various theories have been advanced for why employees leave incumbent firms to found firms in the same industry, which we call spinoffs. We review the accumulating evidence about spinoffs in various high-tech industries, highlighting the central role often played by disagreements. Because...