We introduce explicitly the effort as a choice variable in a continuous time utility maximisation framework of an executive who is partly compensated with stock options. We solve the model in the case where the executive is not allowed to trade in the company's stock but is able to achieve a...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolutionary process of imitation and innovation as a process of searching in a given neighbourhood of firms. Networks are the main source of information for firms willing to actively search and upgrade and which define the reachable neighbourhood...

This paper deals with the aggregate effects of small, exogenous but idiosyncratic technological shocks on locally interacting firms. Its main purpose is to model a situation in which technological paradigms emerge through endogenous propagation and diffusion of information leading to an...

We present a model where it can be optimal for rational informed speculators/arbitragers to ride the bubble instead of using their information for stabilising purposes. This result stems from the interaction of speculators with behavioural traders. These latter in each period of time either...

This paper investigates the mechanics through which wealth may, in the long run, trickle down from the rich to the poor. In the presence of indivisibilities in investment of human capital and impossibility of borrowing money, investment in education is financed through an intergenerational...

Technological innovation requires the gathering of information through a process of searching and learning. We distinguish two different but definitely complementary and overlapping ways through which searching and learning occur. The first exploits the spillover potential that lies in a firm's...

In this paper shareholders face the trade-off between providing managers with incentives to exert beneficial effort and to engage in costly fraudulent activity. We solve for the optimal compensation package, given that shareholders can either grant (restricted) stock or stock options and given...

This paper studies the evolution of a network of leading firms that are engaged in an active search to improve their technological capability through interaction with knowledge-heterogeneous firms. Through the simulation of a linear model of technological spillovers we show the emergence of...

This paper develops a real option model in which the interaction between debt, liquidation policy and risky investments is studied. We consider a manager who owns the firm and faces the opportunity to invest in risky projects which boost current profits at the cost of bankruptcy if they turn out...

This paper investigates the research and development activity of heterogeneous and rationally bounded firms. The latter conduct this activity through in-house research and by collecting information originating in other firms' spillovers. Thus, research and development activity owes both to...