A long-standing debate centers on the role of the “Haves” and the “Have Nots” in litigation. It is often suggested that wealthier plaintiffs are more likely to be repeat players, who tend to prevail in disputes before the courts. Do wealthy repeat players indeed capture courts and...

What is the effect of wars on industrialization, technology and commercial activity? In economic terms, such events as wars comprise a large exogenous shock to labor and capital markets, aggregate demand, the distribution of expenditures, and the rate and direction of technological innovation....

Family firms are typically associated with negative characteristics, including lower tendencies towards innovation, a higher risk of failure, and inefficiencies deriving from nepotism among family members, criticisms which are even greater when the company is handed over to a female relative....

Endogenous growth models raise fundamental questions about the nature of human creativity, and the sorts of resources, skills, and knowledge inputs that shift the frontier of technology and production possibilities. Many argue that the nature of early British industrialization supports the...

This paper compares the award of prizes to innovation in the patent system. The data set comprises a sample of exhibits and premiums at industrial fairs sponsored by the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, between 1837 and 1874. The results shed light on the factors that influenced...

This book honors the work of Axel Leijonhufvud. The topics range from Keynesian economics and the economics of high inflation to the micro-foundations of macroeconomics and economic history. The authors comprise some of the very best economists active today.

Biographical information on a sample of renowned U.S. inventors is combined with information on the patents they received over their careers, and employed to highlight the implications of patent institutions for markets in inventions and for democratization. The United States deliberately...

Recent scholarship highlights the importance of institutions to the processes of economic growth, but the precise nature of their relationship bears further examination. This paper considers how the evolution of legal institutions has contributed to, and in turn been affected by, major...