A unique database on individual tender documents is used to analyze the relationship between strategical factors and outcomes when technical consultancy firms (TCFs) compete for foreign assignments in the infrastructure sectors. TCFs, which sell services based on human capital, have a large...

Although the leaf-thin bracteates are the most fragile coins in monetary history, they were the main coin type for almost two centuries in large parts of medieval Europe. The usefulness of the bracteates can be linked to the contemporary monetary taxation policy. Medieval coins were frequently...

In medieval Europe, old coins were frequently declared invalid and exchanged for new ones at fixed rates and dates. Here, the question of whether and when such re-coinage was applied in medieval Sweden is analyzed against the historical record. A theory of how short-lived coinage systems work is...

Firms and governments spend billions of dollars on R&D every year. To increase social welfare, the results of R&D must be commercialized so that consumers can benefit from improved products and lower prices. One measure of R&D output is patents; however, most patent databases contain no...

When and how do entrepreneurs sell their inventions? To address this issue, we develop an endogenous entry-sale asymmetric information oligopoly model. We show that lowquality inventions are sold directly or used for own entry. Inventors who sell post-entry use entry to credibly reveal...

The aim of this paper is to provide new empirical evidence on the most crucial determinants of success for firms applying for public R&D grants. Previous studies have been limited to firm level data and mainly tested how firm characteristics affect the allocation of R&D grants. Thereby, they...