In the field:Coase an exemplar in the tradition of Smith, Marshall and Ostrom

This paper argues that Coase provides the primary 20th century exemplar of the grounding of analytical developments in economics in direct fieldwork observation. In particular, his focus on the business enterprise, its internal functions (including decision-making), and its external relations (including contracting) has provided a stimulus for radical developments in microeconomics and in managerial and decision economics in particular. The argument is developed by a stylization of the development of economics, referring to Adam Smith in the 18th century, Alfred Marshall in the 19th century, Ronald Coase in the 20th century, and Elinor Ostrom in the 21st century

K2 observations of the pulsating subdwarf B star EQ Piscium: an sdB+dM binary

K2, the two-wheel mission of the Kepler space telescope, observed the pulsating subdwarf B star EQ Psc during engineering tests in 2014 February. In addition to a rich spectrum of g-mode pulsation frequencies, the observations demonstrate a light variation with a period of 19.2 h and a full amplitude of 2%. We suggest that this is due to reflection from a cool companion, making EQ\,Psc the longest-period member of some 30 binaries comprising a hot subdwarf and a cool dwarf companion (sdB+dM), and hence useful for exploring the common-envelope ejection mechanism in low-mass binaries.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA

Venture capital and risk in high-technology enterprises

We find UK investors and entrepreneurs are significantly concordant in rankings of investments and key factors for risk but significantly discordant on risk classes. Investors emphasise agency risk (e.g., motivation, empowerment, alignment), and entrepreneurs emphasise business risk (e.g., market opportunities)

Venture capital investor behaviour in the backing of UK high technology firms : financial reporting and the level of investment

This paper is an empirical investigation into the ways in which venture capitalists value (and invest in) high technology firms, focusing on financial reporting, risk disclosure and intangible assets. It is based on questionnaire returns from UK investors in diverse sectors, ranging from biotechnology, through software/ computer services, to communications and medical services. This evidence is used to examine: (a) the usefulness of financial accounts; (b) the implications of technopole investment; (c) the extent of investor control over the investee's AIS; and (d) the role of investor opinion (e.g. on disclosure, due diligence and risk reporting) in determining the level of equity provision

Charmonium Suppression by Comover Scattering in Pb+Pb Collisions

The first reports of $\psi$ and $\psi'$ production from experiment NA50 at the CERN SPS are compared to predictions based on a hadronic model of charmonium suppression. Data on centrality dependence and total cross sections are in good accord with these predictions.Comment: 9 pages, latex, 6 figures, epsf, figure added and text modified to clarify result

What\u27s It Worth to Keep a Secret?

This article is the first major study of protection and valuation of trade secrets under federal criminal law. Trade secrecy is more important than ever as an economic complement and substitute for other intellectual property protections, particularly patents. Accordingly, U.S. public policy correctly places a growing emphasis on characterizing the scope of trade secrets, creating incentives for their productive use, and imposing penalties for their theft. Yet amid this complex ecosystem of legal doctrine, economic policy, commercial strategy, and enforcement, there is little research or consensus on how to assign value to trade secrets. One reason for this gap is that intangible assets in general are notoriously difficult to value, and trade secrecy by its opaque nature is ill-suited to the market-signaling mechanisms that offer at least some traction in other forms of valuation. Another reason is that criminal trade secret law is relatively young, and the usual corrective approaches to valuation in civil trade secrecy are not synonymous with the greater distributive concerns of criminal law. To begin to fill this gap, we examine over a decade of trade secret protection and valuation under the U.S. Economic Espionage Act of 1996. From original data on EEA prosecutions, we show that trade secret valuations are lognormally distributed as predicted by Gibrat’s Law, with valuations typically low on the order of $5 million but reaching as high as$250 million. There is no notable difference among estimates from various valuation methods, but a difference between high and low estimates on one hand and the sentencing estimates on the other. These findings suggest that the EEA has not been used to its full capacity, a conclusion buttressed by recent Congressional actions to strengthen the EEA

What's it worth to keep a secret?

This article is the first major study of protection and valuation of trade secrets under federal criminal law. Trade secrecy is more important than ever as an economic complement and substitute for other intellectual property protections, particularly patents. Accordingly, U.S. public policy correctly places a growing emphasis on characterizing the scope of trade secrets, creating incentives for their productive use, and imposing penalties for their theft. Yet amid this complex ecosystem of legal doctrine, economic policy, commercial strategy, and enforcement, there is little research or consensus on how to assign value to trade secrets. One reason for this gap is that intangible assets in general are notoriously difficult to value, and trade secrecy by its opaque nature is ill-suited to the market-signaling mechanisms that offer at least some traction in other forms of valuation. Another reason is that criminal trade secret law is relatively young, and the usual corrective approaches to valuation in civil trade secrecy are not synonymous with the greater distributive concerns of criminal law. To begin to fill this gap, we examine over a decade of trade secret protection and valuation under the U.S. Economic Espionage Act of 1996. From original data on EEA prosecutions, we show that trade secret valuations are lognormally distributed as predicted by Gibrat’s Law, with valuations typically low on the order of $5 million but reaching as high as$250 million. There is no notable difference among estimates from various valuation methods, but a difference between high and low estimates on one hand and the sentencing estimates on the other. These findings suggest that the EEA has not been used to its full capacity, a conclusion buttressed by recent Congressional actions to strengthen the EEA

Why a rule for stable prices may dominate a rule for zero inflation

An analysis of how a rule for monetary policy specifying a stable price level may dominate a rule for zero inflation with price-level drift, even in the case where, for purely economic reasons, an inflation rule is preferred.Inflation (Finance) ; Monetary policy