Exploiting reforms of state covenants-not-to-compete laws to capture exogenous variation in barriers to compete for talent, I show that firms increase cash holdings when talent competition intensifies. The effect is concentrated among firms for which talent is more important and in industries...

This paper focuses on a novel phenomenon — mobile banking diffusion — to illuminate unresolved questions: whether rivalry and market structure affect the diffusion of a new technology, and if so, under what conditions. Using a unique, hand-collected dataset from the iTunes Store for...

We propose that CEO exploratory mindset—inherent desire to search for novel ideas and long-term orientation—promotes innovation. Firms with PhD CEOs produce more exploratory patents with greater novelty, generality and originality. PhD CEOs engage less in managing earnings and stock prices,...

This paper re-examines the factors that have contributed to the dramatic increase in the average cash-to-assets ratio in U.S. firms since 1980. The analysis first shows that this increase is driven almost entirely by the increase in cash-to-assets ratio of R&D intensive firms. Second, the...

Non-compete agreements help protect business investments by restricting worker mobility, thereby increasing firm incentives to invest. Yet, they could damage the efficacy of innovation investments that crucially rest on employee incentives. Exploiting staggered reforms of state non-compete...