De jure determinants of new firm formation: how the pillars of constitutions influence entrepreneurship

This paper provides empirical evidence supporting the view that constitutions are the primary and fundamental institutional determinant of entrepreneurship. It shows that some of the provisions contained in national constitutions are positively and significantly associated with a standard measure of entrepreneurial dynamics, namely the rate of new business density. Using for 115 countries a novel dataset containing the characteristics of the constitutions enacted in the world, applying an IV-GMM treatment to deal with the endogeneity of constitutional rules, and controlling for de facto variables, the paper finds that provisions about the right to conduct/establish a business, the right to strike, consumer protection, anti-corruption, and compulsory education promote higher rates of new firm formation. Contrasting results are instead obtained for provisions concerning protection of intellectual property rights

Sequencing and timing of strategic responses after industry disruption: evidence from post-deregulation competition in the U.S. railroad industry

This paper examines the sequencing and timing of firms’ strategic responses after significant industry disruption. We show that it is not the single strategic choice or response per se, but the sequencing and patterns of consecutive strategic responses that drive a firm’s adaptation and survival in the aftermath of a shift in the industry. We find that firms’ renewal efforts involved differential adaptability in finding balance at the juxtaposition of responding to demand-side pressures and choosing a path of new capability acquisition efficiently. Our study underscores the importance of taking a sequencing approach to studying strategic responses to industry disruption

Non-Monotonic Security Protocols and Failures in Financial Intermediation

Security Protocols as we know them are monotonic: valid security evidence (e.g. commitments, signatures, etc.) accrues over protocol steps performed by honest parties. Once’s Alice proved she has an authentication token, got some digital cash, or casted a correct vote, the protocol can move on to validate Bob’s evidence. Alice’s evidence is never invalidated by honest Bob’s actions (as long as she stays honest and is not compromised). Protocol failures only stems from design failures or wrong assumptions (such as Alice’s own misbehavior). Security protocol designers can then focus on preventing or detecting misbehavior (e.g. double spending or double voting). We argue that general financial intermediation (e.g. Market Exchanges) requires us to consider new form of failures where honest Bob’s actions can make honest good standing. Security protocols must be able to deal with non-monotonic security and new types of failures that stems from rational behavior of honest agents finding themselves on the wrong side. This has deep implications for the efficient design of security protocols for general financial intermediation, in particular if we need to guarantee a proportional burden of computation to the various parties

Matching, search and intermediation with two-sided heterogeneity

Decentralized trade, Random-matching, Nash-bargaining, Intermediation, Stationary states, C78, D43, L11,