The goal of this study was to analyze the emergence of treatment standards associated with the adoption of anti-HIV drug innovations in the empirical setting of Italian clinical practice. Due to the rapid pace of technological change and the initial uncertainty concerning capabilities and...

The decision to adopt e-commerce technology depends on a variety of variables. This paper explores the relative importance of structural firm-specific variables, the intrinsic value of the technology, expectations concerning the evolution of the technology, and the adoption behaviour of other...

Academics and policy makers are questioning about the relation between science and technology in the emerging field of nano science and technology (NST) and the effectiveness of different institutional regimes. We analyze the performance of inventors in the NST using multiple indicators. We...

The last 10 years witnessed an exponential growth of the Internet. According to Hobbes' Internet Timeline, the Internet hosts are about 93 million, while in 1989 they were 100,000. The same happens for second level domain names. In July 1989 the registered domains were about 3,900 while they...

The paper discusses three key economic problems raised by the emergence and diffusion of Open source software: motivation, coordination, and diffusion under a dominant standard. First, the movement took off through the activity of a software development community that deliberately did not follow...

We test recent theory on the benefits of auctions and bargaining as alternative procurement mechanisms using data on the procurement of medical devices by Italian hospitals. Theory suggests that auctions perform well when cost control is the key concern, but are less effective at producing the...