July 21, 2025 - Chapter
This paper argues that the significant geopolitical shifts of the last decade require a new approach to studying the economics of innovation. We document that national governments increasingly seek to control critical technologies rather than encouraging diffusion globally. This dynamic is reshaping...
August 2023 - Working Paper31541 Motivated by the establishment of major U.S. Federal programs seeking to harness the potential of regional innovation ecosystems, we assess the promise and challenges of place-based innovation policy interventions. Relative to traditional research grants, place-based innovation policy interventions...
July 31, 2023 - Chapter
Motivated by the recent establishment of major US Federal programs seeking to harness the potential of regional innovation ecosystems, we assess the promise and challenges of place-based innovation policy interventions. Relative to traditional research grants, place-based innovation policy...

April 20, 2023 - Article
Startups have more incentive than incumbent firms to engage in potentially disruptive R&D because large, established firms have more to lose from the discovery of new technologies that replace traditional ways of doing things. With no existing operations, startups have nothing to lose and much to...
August 2022 - Working Paper30362 What is the role of startups within the innovation ecosystem? Since 2000, startups have grown in their share of commercializing research from top U.S. universities; however, prior work has little to say on the particular advantages of startup ventures in the innovation process relative to more...
June 7, 2021 - Chapter
Innovation is essential for economic growth, prosperity and social progress. However, there is strong evidence of persistent inequality and exclusion of women in the US innovation economy. We develop a framework to map the inventor (patentee) gender gap and identify contexts and catalysts for...
April 2019 - Working Paper25759 For organizations focused on scientific research and innovation, workforce diversity is a key driver of success. Blinded review is an increasingly popular approach to reducing bias and increasing diversity in the selection of people and projects, yet its effectiveness is not fully understood. We...

April 1, 2016 - Article
Team performance in many settings has long challenged economic thinking. Even when monetary incentives are present, it is hard to structure those incentives to overcome moral hazard and other issues of free riding, especially when team tasks interact with one another. This is especially true for...
November 2014 - Working Paper20677 Formal attribution provides a means of recognizing scientific contributions as well as allocating scientific credit. This paper examines the processes by which attribution arises and its interaction with market assessments of the relative contributions of members of scientific teams and communities...
July 17, 2014 - Chapter
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...
October 2013 - Working Paper19560 This paper provides a theoretical investigation of the tension over knowledge disclosure between firms and their scientific employees. While empirical research suggests that scientists exhibit a "taste for science," such open disclosures can limit a firm's competitive advantage or ability to...
October 2013 - Working Paper19538 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...
April 2013 - Working Paper18958 When do scientists and other knowledge workers 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 between the productive efficiency of collaboration and the credit allocation that...
October 2012 - Working Paper18499 To what extent does "false science" impact the rate and direction of scientific change? We examine the impact of more than 1,100 scientific retractions on the citation trajectories of articles that are related to retracted papers in intellectual space but were published prior to the retraction event...
June 25, 2012 - Chapter
Philanthropy plays a major role in university-based scientific, engineering, and medical research in the United States, contributing over $4 billion annually to operations, endowment, and buildings devoted to research. When combined with endowment income, university research funding from science...
June 2012 - Working Paper18146 Philanthropy plays a major role in university-based scientific, engineering and medical research in the United States contributing over $4Billion annually to operations, endowment and buildings devoted to research. When combined with endowment income, university research funding from science...
January 20, 2012 - Chapter
April 2011 - Working Paper16980 This paper examines argues that while two distinct perspectives characterize the foundations of the public funding of research - filling a selection gap and solving a disclosure problem - in fact both the selection choices of public funders and their criteria for disclosure and commercialization...
March 2009 - Working Paper14819 Scientific freedom and openness are hallmarks of academia: relative to their counterparts in industry, academics maintain discretion over their research agenda and allow others to build on their discoveries. This paper examines the relationship between openness and freedom, building on recent models...
February 15, 2007 - Chapter
This chapter describes the impact of formal intellectual property rights on the production and diffusion of "dual knowledge"ideas that are simultaneously of value as a scientific discovery and as a useful, inventive construct. We argue that a great deal of knowledge generated in academia,...
July 2005 - Working Paper11465 While the potential for intellectual property rights to inhibit the diffusion of scientific knowledge is at the heart of several contemporary policy debates, evidence for the "anti-commons effect" has been anecdotal. A central issue in this debate is how intellectual property rights over a given...