Economic societies emerged during the late eighteenth-century. We argue that these institutions reduced the costs of accessing useful knowledge by adopting, producing, and diffusing new ideas. Combining location information for the universe of 3,300 members across active economic societies in...

A firm actively manages its rival's beliefs by disclosing and concealing information on the size of its process innovation. The firm's disclosure strategy results from the trade-off between two effects on product market incentives. First, the firm's competitor learns that the firm is efficient,...

Using data from the U.S. automobile market, we empirically examine the link between competition and innovation. Consistent with a large literature, we use patent counts as a measure of innovation. The combination of the U.S. market’s economic importance, market dynamics, and the significant...

In this study, we investigate whether and to what extent community managers in online collaborative communities can stimulate crowd activities through their engagement. Using a novel data set of 22 large online idea crowdsourcing campaigns, we find that active engagement of community managers...

We argue that, for a given level of scientific knowledge, tolerance and diversity are conducive to technological creativity and innovation. In particular, we show that variations in innovation within Prussia during the second industrial revolution can be ascribed to differences in religious...

We provide quantitative evidence on the relationship between military spending and innovation in the 19th century. Combining innovation data from world fairs and historical military data across Europe, we show that national military spending is associated with national innovation towards war...

We provide quantitative evidence on the relationship between military spending and innovation in the 19th century. Combining innovation data from world fairs and historical military data across Europe, we show that national military spending is associated with national innovation towards war...

Technological progress builds upon itself, with the expansion of invention in one domain propelling future work in linked fields. Our analysis uses 1.8 million U.S. patents and their citation properties to map the innovation network and its strength. Past innovation network structures are...

We study the prevalence and traits of global collaborative patents for U.S. public companies, where the inventor team is located both within and outside of the United States. Collaborative patents are frequently observed when a corporation is entering into a new foreign region for innovative...

We examine immigrant entrepreneurship and the survival and growth of immigrant-founded businesses over time relative to native-founded companies. Our work quantifies immigrant contributions to new firm creation in a wide variety of fields and using multiple definitions. While significant...