National Bureau of Economic Research

Benjamin Jones and Josh Lerner, editors.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 3 synthesizes key findings about entrepreneurial and innovative activity in the US economy, conveying insights on contemporary challenges and providing an analytical base for policy design. 

In the first paper, Jorge Guzman, Fiona Murray, Scott Stern, and Heidi Williams examine regional innovation engines and highlight the place-specific actions, potential bottlenecks, and roles of different stakeholders in…

Novelist Victor Hugo offered insightful analysis of the underground economy in his 1862 novel Les Misérables: “when work is lacking, when the trade is nil, the taxpayer resists the tax by shortage, exhausts and exceeds the deadlines, and the State spends a lot of money in duress and enforcement fees. When work abounds … the tax is easily paid.” In Rethinking the Informal Economy and the Hugo Effect (NBER Working Paper 31963), Francesco Pappadà and Kenneth S. Rogoff develop a novel measure of the size of the off-the-books economy in the countries in the European Union, and they…

Can healthcare markets deliver access, affordability, and quality? While markets for hospital and physician services both have unique challenges, generic drug pricing is often seen as a success story for market forces. After patent-related exclusivity ends, prices fall dramatically. Consumers have access to a range of highly clinically valuable products at low prices. Is this success unique or can it be replicated in other parts of the healthcare sector?

As in other healthcare markets, insurers play a crucial role in determining both prices and utilization of prescription drugs. Patients purchase pharmaceuticals from a pharmacy, either in a physical location or by mail. Like many retailers of consumer goods, pharmaceutical retailers purchase products from wholesalers and manufacturers. A unique feature in the financing of…

Over the past 25 years, labor force participation at older ages has increased dramatically. In the 12 countries that are part of the NBER’s International Social Security (ISS) project, participation among those aged 60 to 64 has risen by an average of over 20 percentage points for men and over 25 percentage points for women.

In The Effects of Reforms on Retirement Behavior: Introduction and Summary (NBER Working Paper 31979), authors Axel Börsch-Supan and Courtney Coile report on the most recent work of the ISS project. The current analysis builds on previous project phases which showed that changes in health and education could…

Access to a high-speed internet connection provides patients with a low-cost means of collecting information related to medical decisions and the quality of medical care providers. In Broadband Internet Access and Health Outcomes: Patient and Provider Responses in Medicare (NBER Working Paper 31579), Jessica Van Parys and Zach Y. Brown link information on broadband availability by ZIP code from the Federal Communications Commission to Medicare claims data from 1999 to 2008. They analyze the effect of high-speed internet access on health outcomes and provider choices for Medicare beneficiaries who are undergoing common procedures.

Private equity (PE) firms’ business model is to acquire privately held companies, to change their strategy and operations with the goal of improving profitability and growth, and ultimately to sell the companies for a profit. The senior management team is replaced at a majority of private equity acquisitions. More than 40 percent of PE firms report that this is a key way to improve their acquisitions’ success.

In The Market for CEOs: Evidence from Private Equity (NBER Working Paper 30899), Paul Gompers, Steven Kaplan, and Vladimir Mukharlyamov compare the characteristics of CEOs installed by PE firms to the characteristics of those who become...