The incredible profits of Initial Public Offerings have often been emphasized in the media as a popular investment for the public. This paper takes a few steps towards refuting such an assertion by investigating the performance of 2,895 venture capital backed IPOs between 1968 and September...

The purpose of this note1 is to raise awareness of Nigeria’s potential as an African offshoring hub, and it is aimed primarily toward policy makers, potential private sector investors, and development partners. What can Nigeria do to take advantage of the benefits of global trade in services;...

This paper presents a History Friendly Model which addresses the issue of the bifurcation in technological styles" between US and Britain during the nineteenth century. The model aims at gaining a better understanding of the micro-dynamics that gave rise to different patterns of innovation in...

This paper works out some of the basic properties of an economy with energy as a factor of production. The economy now consists of streams of energy conversions that direct energy to the production of goods and services. The focus on energy generates a variety of insights. It yields a new...

What is the optimal system of intellectual property rights to encourage innovation? Empirical evidence from economic history can help to inform important policy questions that have been difficult to answer with modern data: 1) Does the existence of strong patent laws encourage innovation? And 2)...

We analyze the joint dynamics of religious beliefs, scientific progress and coalitional politics along both religious and economic lines. History offers many examples of the recurring tensions between science and organized religion, but as part of the paper's motivating evidence we also uncover...

Past study of the diffusion of pervasive technologies, such as the electric motor, has failed to take into account the varied technological challenges in their application. In a careful examination of the adoption patterns of the electric motor in three industries, automobile manufacture,...

The Paper discusses the relationship between economic action and responsibility. Starting point of the argument is a comparison of positions by Socrates and representatives of modern economics towards the relationship between economy and the environment. As historical example the authors regard...

This paper explores how a systemic evolutionary view, which argues that evolution is a knowledge generating process, and conceptually or mathematically related perspectives can contribute to an integrated perspective on the evolution of information organization by linking perspectives from...