Does greater equity ownership by institutional investors improve or inhibit innovation incentives? We present a model of career concerns where institutional ownership increases the incentives managers have to innovate through reducing informational asymmetries. We then utilize an original panel of US firms containing information on ownership, governance, managerial characteristics and innovatio...

Japan’s hybrid system during the Meiji era of technological modernization provides a useful laboratory for examining whether complementary mechanisms to patents induce innovation. Patents were introduced in 1885 and by 1911 1.2 million mostly non-pecuniary prizes were awarded at 8,503 competitions. Prizes increased patent outcomes by 35 percent, a conservative causal estimate based on the timin...

We analyze the causes and mechanisms of inequality in Post-Soviet Union transition economies. First, we show that both economic globalisation – namely, import, export, and foreign direct investment – and institutional factors – namely, privatisation reforms, labour market liberalisation, and product market liberalisation – are strongly associated with within-country rises in inequality. However...

This paper investigates the relationship between engagement in consulting activities and the research performance of academic scientists. The study relies on a sample of 2678 individual faculty, from five Spanish universities, who have been recipients of publicly funded grants or have been principal investigators in activities contracted by external agents over the period 1999-2004. By implemen...

New technologies have allowed …rms to monitor low-skill workers more closely, thus reducing the power of these workers. We show that this ’power-biased change’may generate rising wage inequality and increases in the work intensity and unemployment of low-skill workers. JEL numbers: J31, O33

This paper presents an evolutionary growth theory that captures the interplay between the evolution of mankind and economic growth since the emergence of the human species. This uni"ed theory encompasses the observed evolution of population, technology and income per capita in the long transition from an epoch of Malthusian stagnation to sustained economic growth. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All...

I sometimes think that general and popular treatises are almost as important for the progress of science as original work.” — Charles Darwin, 1865 As the largest encyclopedia in the world, it is not surprising that Wikipedia reflects the state of scientific knowledge. However, Wikipedia is also one of the most accessed websites in the world, including by scientists, which suggests that it also ...

In this introduction the editors showcase the papers by way of a structured project and seek to clarify the two key concepts cited in the title. We consider the history of the idea that knowledge is an economic factor, and discuss the question of whether regions provide the relevant system of reference for knowledge-based economic development. Current transformations in university-industry-gove...

There is a popular belief that Chinese imports have devastated US and European manufacturing and contributed to rising inequality. Somewhat paradoxically, the consensus amongst empirical economists is that trade has not been a major cause of rising wage inequality (although this is largely based on datasets predating China’s rise). We argue that both views have underestimated the positive impac...

North-South Trade-Related Technology Diffusion: Virtuous Growth Cycles in Latin America This paper examines the impact on TFP in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and in other developing countries (DEV) of trade-related foreign R&D (NRD), education and governance. The measures of NRD are constructed based on industry-specific R&D in the North, North-South trade patterns, and input-output re...