This paper demonstrates the possibility of constructing a measure of product diversity using observed price and quantity data. We do this by positing a utility function, where utility depends on bilateral distance between products. We show how these unobserved parameters can be inferred from...

The recent formal literature on industrialization considers the technological choice space as a simple binary choice between a constant returns and increasing returns technology. The latter involves a large fixed cost yielding labor productivity gains. In line with arguments based on the...

When startup innovation involves a potentially disruptive technology – initially lagging in the predominant performance metric, but with a potentially favorable trajectory of improvement – incumbents may be wary of engaging in cooperative commercialization with the startup. While the...

When do scientists and other innovators organize into collaborative teams, and why do they do so for some projects and not others? At the core of this important organizational choice is, we argue, a tradeoff scientists make between the productive efficiency of collaboration and the credit...

This paper considers the impact of the intellectual property (IP) system on the timing of cooperation/licensing by start-up technology entrepreneurs. If the market for technology licenses is efficient, the timing of licensing is independent of the patent grant date, and productive efficiency...

We analyze the relationship between incumbency and innovative activity in the context of a model of technological competition in which successful entrants are able to license their innovation to (or be acquired by) an incumbent. That such a sale ought to take place is natural since the...

This paper considers the role of the allocation of scientific credit in determining the organization of science. We examine changes in that organization and the nature of credit allocation in the past half century. Our contribution is a formal model of that organizational choice that considers...

In a dynamic environment where underlying competition is “for the market,” this paper examines what happens when entrants and incumbents can instead negotiate for the market. For instance, this might arise when an entrant innovator can choose to license to or be acquired by an incumbent...

In 2007, Congress created a fast-track review voucher at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a reward for approval of a drug for a neglected disease. The developer of a neglected-disease drug receives a transferable voucher for faster review of any other drug. Similar fast-track...