A surprisingly small amount of empirical research has been focused on the process of obtaining a patent grant from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). The purpose of this document is to describe the Patent Examination Dataset (PatEX), make a large amount of information from the...

Temzelides and Williamson present a model of private currency issuance to study the effect of clearing arrangements on the prices at which private currencies trade, on the volume of exchange, and on welfare. Their findings hinge on three factors: the location of the issuers relative to the area...

In Elamin (2013), the credit rating agency (CRA) cannot credibly fully reveal its information about the quality of a rated structured finance project, when ratings are unverifiable. Can the fear of losing its reputation discipline the CRA? In this paper, there is incomplete information about the...

A case study is a capsule of reality. The instant considers road financing in Uganda, and presents a prototype financing mechanism for local governments. It is a genre of Sub-National Public-Private Partnership (SN-PPP). The prototype appreciates the unique power of the individual in the country...

We examine the influence of social capital and various prevailing beliefs on household repayment behavior in Europe, after accounting for household-specific characteristics and country differences in institutions. Arrears are more common among households living in regions with dense corruption...

I add heterogeneous agents and risk-sharing opportunities to a global game of regime change. The novel insight is that when there is a risk-sharing motive, fundamentals drive not only individual behavior, but also select which individuals are more relevant for the likelihood of a crisis because...

Mutual funds generally do not invest in venture capital, private equity, or restricted shares of public companies. Consequently, individuals who desire to invest in such securities are unable to do so through diversified mutual funds. In this paper, we identify public policies and regulations...

While records of the assignments (transactions) affecting US patents and patent applications have been maintained by the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) for over 40 years, few researchers have used them. To help remedy this deficiency, the USPTO Office of Chief Economist is releasing...

Many changes occurred in the last years in the economic and social framework make this question quite actual. This special issue argues that the new reality created by the great financial crisis has fostered cooperative banks’ development — at least at local level — and allowed them to...

Within the context of an endogenous growth model, it is shown that in the presence of health risks which influence household income, the introduction of a private insurance company increases the long-term economic growth rate. The introduction of such an institution has two effects on savings: a...