Firms can use different sources of external knowledge for developing and implementing innovations. Some knowledge is provided deliberately by the source and constitutes intended knowledge spillovers, e.g., knowledge disclosed in publications or patent files. Other sources represent unintended...

Suppose a farmer had to apply a herbicide pre-emergence or not at all. The advent of a herbicide-tolerance trait innovation then provides the option to wait for more information before making a state-contingent post-emergence application. This option to wait can increase or decrease average...

One of the objectives of patent systems is to disclose information which other agents can build on in further inventions and in their decision-making. While some observers take it as given that real-world patent systems serve this objective, we argue in this article that patent systems are...