The main goal of this thesis is to investigate the reasons why firms do often adopt inefficient technologies even when superior ones are widely available, and to assess their consequences. From a macroeconomic perspective it has been emphasized that differences in the adoption and diffusion...

This paper investigates, both theoretically and empirically, the implications that complementary assets needed for the formation of start-ups - proxied by the ease of access to financial resources - have on the innovative efforts of incumbent firms. In particular, we develop a theoretical model,...

In this paper, we propose technology uncertainty as a new factor relevant to market collusion. We analyze an infinitely repeated quantity game where, for each firm, the marginal productivity of the input employed in the production process is affected by an unobservable shock. Each firm faces...

This paper investigates, both theoretically and empirically, the implications that complementary assets needed for the formation of start-ups - proxied by the ease of access to financial resources - have on the innovative efforts of incumbent firms. In particular, we develop a theoretical model,...

This paper investigates firms' optimal location choices explicitly accounting for the role of inwards and outwards knowledge spillovers in a dynamic Cournot oligopoly with firms that are heterogeneous in their ability to carry out cost-reducing R\&D. Firms can either locate in an industrial...

We investigate the capital structure of a large sample of corporations in 52 countries, focusing on the effects of macroeconomic and institutional characteristics on firms' dynamic behavior. We find that these characteristics affect both the optimal level of leverage and the adjustment process...

When the debt of firms in distress is dispersed, a restructuring agreement is difficult to reach because of free riding. We develop a repeated game in which banks come across each other frequently, allowing them to threaten a punishment in case of free riding. As the number of lending banks...

We study a competitive insurance market in which insurers have an imperfect informative advantage over policyholders. We show that the presence of insurers privately and heterogeneously informed about risk can explain the concentration levels, the persistent profitability and the pooling of risk...