Does Distance Matter Less Now? The Changing Role of Geography in Biotechnology Innovation

Using patent citation data for the U.S., we test whether knowledge spillovers in biotechnology are sensitive to distance, and whether that sensitivity has changed over time. Controlling for self-citation by inventor, assignee, and examiner, cohort-based regression analysis shows that physical distance is becoming less important for spillovers with time.     

Firm survival in the German automobile industry

In this paper, methods of duration analysis are applied to investigate determinants of firm survival in the German automobile industry during the period 1886–1939. A new comprehensive data set has been assembled in order to secure data comparable to that for the US automobile industry. Our results show that the forces shaping the survival pattern of firms over the life cycle are quite similar in both countries, i.e. early entry in the life cycle and prior experience are associated with a lower risk of exit. This finding holds equally when parametric, semiparametric and nonparametric methods are applied.We thank the participants of the 10th conference of the International Schumpeter Society in Milan, June 2004, and the 31st EARIE conference in Berlin, September 2004, for helpful discussion. We also thank two anonymous referees for their comments. All remaining errors are in our responsibility.     

Gender differences in time preferences

This paper reports the results from a large online experiment in which we examine gender differences in time preferences. Subjects choose in different situations between receiving an immediate payment and receiving a different sum later. We find that more men than women are impatient and choose to receive the immediate payment, at least if the implicit interest rate of the “late” option is neither too high nor too low.     

How Disclosure Features of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports Interact with Investor Numeracy to Influence Investor Judgments

Firms’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports typically frame their strategies in terms of either community or global efforts (i.e., “strategy frame”). Further, the style used to depict CSR performance in reports often highlights either pictures or words (i.e., “presentation style”). These two prominent disclosure features of CSR reports promote a natural fit or misfit in the focus (relatively low‐level or high‐level focus) investors adopt when thinking about the firm and its CSR efforts. Further, these disclosure features likely have different effects on investors depending on their numeracy or, in other words, the way that they naturally process numerical information. In this study, we predict and find that a fit between the strategy frame and the presentation style of a firm's CSR report causes less numerate investors to be more willing to invest than when a fit is not present. Specifically, we find that a fit leads less numerate investors to experience subjective feelings of processing fluency and, in turn, positive affect that serves as a cue that the positive CSR performance information can be relied upon, which positively influences willingness to invest. Our results have implications for both CSR reports as well as other types of firm disclosures that increasingly vary along similar disclosure characteristics. Our results also contribute to both the growing literature on presentation effects in accounting, as well as the broader business literature on CSR reporting.