We analyze the role of risk-sharing institutions in transitions to modern economies.Transitions requires individual-level risk-taking in pursuing productivity-enhancing activitiesincluding using and developing new knowledge. Individual-level, idiosyncratic risk implies thatdistinct risk-sharing...

We construct and estimate a unified model combining three of the main sources of cross-country income disparities:[...]

How does technological progress in financial intermediation affect the economy? To address this questiona costly-state verification framework is embedded into a standard growth model. In particular, financialintermediaries can invest resources to monitor the returns earned by firms. The...

In this paper, I describe and analyze the phenomenon of informal development collaborationbetween firms in the field of embedded Linux, a type of open source software. Toexplain the observed phenomenon of voluntary revealing, I develop a duopoly model ofquality competition. The central...

Die sich in mehr oder weniger regelmäßigen Abständen stellende Frage nachden Zukunftsperspektiven der Genossenschaften in Deutschland erfordert nahezuzwangsläufig die Auseinandersetzung mit zwei unterschiedlichen Facetten.So stellt sich zum einen die Frage nach den wirtschaftlichen, speziell...

The emergence of new economic activities is the driving force of economic development. The development of such activities is often ‘lumpy’, manifesting itself in rapid growth of particular regions or sectors. Recognition of these facts requires a reorientation of the analytical frameworks...

Die Rolle der Hochschulen im Innovationssystem sowohl der BRD als auch der DDR hat sich in den letzten fünfzig Jahren zum Teil dramatisch geändert. Der Veränderungsprozess in der Bundesrepublik lässt sich grob in drei Phasen einteilen, die sich zwar überlappen, dennoch im wesentlichen eine...

Industrial delicensing which began in 1985 in India marked a discrete break from apast of centrally planned industrial development. Similar liberalization episodes are takingplace across the globe. We develop a simple Schumpeterian growth model to understand how…rms respond to the entry threat...

Innovation is key to technology adoption and creation, and to explaining the vast differencesin productivity across and within countries. Despite the central role of the entrepreneur in theinnovation process, data limitations have restricted standard analysis of the determinants ofinnovation to...

Basic innovations are often fundamental to the development of applications that maybe developed by other innovators. In this setting, we investigate whether patent pools canrectify the lack of incentives for developers to invest in applications. Following Green andScotchmer (1995), we also...