Returns to Inventors

A key input to inventive activity is human capital. Hence it is important to understand the monetary incentives of inventors. We estimate the effect of patented inventions on individual earnings by linking data on U.S. patents and their inventors to Finnish employer-employee data. Returns are heterogeneous: Inventors get a temporary reward of 3% of annual earnings for a patent grant and for highly-cited patents a longer-lasting premium of 30% in earnings three years later. Similar medium-term premia accrue to inventors who initially hold the patent rights, although they forego earnings at the time of the grant

Monitoring and Market Power in Credit Markets

No abstract.

Monitoring and Market Power in Loan Markets

Whether or not banks are engaged in ex ante monitoring of customers may have important consequences for the whole economy. We approach this question via a model in which banks can invest in either information acquisition or market power (product differentiation). The two alternatives generate different predictions, which are tested using panel data on Finnish local banks. We find evidence that banks’ investments in branch networks and human capital (personnel) contribute to information acquisition but not to market power. We also find that managing customers’ money transactions enhances banks ability to control their lending risks.banks; information acquisition; market power; fixed costs; branch network; default costs

Returns to Inventors

A key input to inventive activity is human capital. Hence it is important to understand the monetary incentives of inventors. We estimate the effect of patented inventions on individual earnings by linking data on U.S. patents and their inventors to Finnish employer-employee data. Returns are heterogeneous: Inventors get a temporary reward of 3% of annual earnings for a patent grant and for highly-cited patents a longer-lasting premium of 30% in earnings three years later. Similar medium-term premia accrue to inventors who initially hold the patent rights, although they forego earnings at the time of the grant.citations; effort; incentives; inventors; intellectual property; patents; performance pay; return; wages

Equilibrium in financial markets with adverse selection

We study a financial market adverse selection model where all agents are endowed with initial wealth and choose to invest as entrepreneurs or financiers, or not to invest. We show that often a lack of outside finance leads to the emergence of financial markets where availability of outside finance leads to autarky. We find that i) there exist Pareto-efficient and inefficient equilibria; ii) adverse selection has more severe consequences for poorer economies; iii) increasing initial wealth may cause a shift from Pareto-efficient to inefficient equilibrium; iv) increasing the proportion of agents with positive NPV projects causes a shift from inefficient to efficient equilibrium; v) equilibrium financial contracts are either equity-like or ‘pure’ debt contracts; vi) agents with negative (positive) NPV projects earn rents only in (non-)wealth-constrained economies; vii) agents earn rents only when employing pure debt contracts; and viii) removing storage technology destroys the only Pareto-efficient equilibrium in non-wealth-constrained economies. Our model enables analysis of various policies concerning financial stability, the need for sophisticated financial institutions, development aid, and the promotion of entrepreneurship.financial market efficiency; adverse selection; financial contracts; creation of firms

Education and invention.

Modern growth theory puts invention on the center stage. Inventions are created by individuals, raising the question: can we increase number of inventors? To answer this question, we study the causal effect of M.Sc. engineering education on invention, using data on U.S. patents’ Finnish inventors and the distance to the nearest technical university as an instrument. We find a positive effect of engineering education on the propensity to patent, and a negative OLS bias. Our counterfactual calculation suggests that establishing 3 new technical universities resulted in a 20% increase in the number of USPTO patents by Finnish inventors.ability bias; citations; education; engineers; growth; innovation; invention; inventors; patents;

Equilibrium in financial markets with adverse selection

We study a financial market adverse selection model where all agents are endowed with initial wealth and choose to invest as entrepreneurs or financiers, or not to invest. We show that often a lack of outside finance leads to the emergence of financial markets where availability of outside finance leads to autarky. We find that i) there exist Pareto- efficient and inefficient equilibria; ii) adverse selection has more severe consequences for poorer economies; iii) increasing initial wealth may cause a shift from Pareto-efficient to inefficient equilibrium; iv) increasing the proportion of agents with positive NPV projects causes a shift from inefficient to efficient equilibrium; v) equilibrium financial contracts are either equity-like or ‘pure’ debt contracts; vi) agents with negative (positive) NPV projects earn rents only in (non- )wealth-constrained economies; vii) agents earn rents only when employing pure debt contracts; and viii) removing storage technology destroys the only Pareto-efficient equilibrium in non-wealth-constrained economies. Our model enables analysis of various policies concerning financial stability, the need for sophisticated financial institutions, development aid, and the promotion of entrepreneurship.financial market efficiency, adverse selection, financial contracts, creation of firms

Cartels uncovered.

How many cartels are there? The answer is important in assessing the need for competition policy. We present a Hidden Markov Model that answers the question, taking into account that often we do not know whether a cartel exists in an industry or not. We take the model to data from a period of legal cartels - Finnish manufacturing industries 1951 - 1990. Our estimates suggest that once born, cartels are persistent; by the end of the period, almost all industries were cartellized. Our model may be extended to identify key policy parameters from data generated under different competition policy regimes.antitrust; cartel; competition; detection; hidden Markov models; illegal; legal; policy; registry;