So far in this course we have dealt entirely with the evolution of characters that are controlled by simple Mendelian inheritance at a single locus. There are notes on the course website about gametic disequilibrium and how allele frequencies change at two loci simultaneously, but we didn’t discuss them. In every example we’ve considered we’ve imagined that we could understand something about evolution by examining the evolution of a single gene. That’s the domain of classical population genetics. For the next few weeks we’re going to be exploring a field that’s actually older than classical population genetics, although the approach we’ll be taking to it involves the use of population genetic machinery. If you know a little about the history of evolutionary biology, you may know that after the rediscovery of Mendel’s work in 1900 there was a heated debate between the “biometricians” (e.g., Galton and Pearson) and the “Mendelians” (e.g., de Vries, Correns, Bateson, and Morgan). Biometricians asserted that the really important variation in evolution didn’t follow Mendelian rules. Height, weight, skin color, and similar traits seemed to

Human biochemical genetics

/pdf/the-theory-of-industrial-organization-19bejph0ej.pdf

The Theory of Industrial Organization

This paper models the inner workings of relationship lending, the implications for bank organisational structure, and the effects of shocks to the economic environment on the availability of relationship credit to small businesses. Relationship lending depends on the accumulation over time by the loan officer of 'soft' information. Because the loan officer is the repository of this soft information, agency problems are created throughout the organisation that may best be resolved by structuring the bank as a small, closely-held organisation with few managerial layers. The shocks analysed include technological innovations, regulatory regime shifts, banking industry consolidation, and monetary policy shocks. The issue of credit availability to small firms has garnered world-wide concern recently. Models of equilibrium credit rationing that point to moral hazard and adverse selection problems (eg, Stiglitz and Weiss, 1981) suggest that small firms may be particularly vulnerable because they are often so informationally opaque. That is, the informational wedge between insiders and outsiders tends to be more acute for small companies, which makes the provision of external finance particularly challenging. Small firms with opportunities to invest in positive net present value projects may be blocked from doing so because potential providers of external finance cannot readily verify that the firm has access to a quality project (adverse selection problem) or ensure that the funds will not be diverted to fund an alternative project (moral hazard problem).

/pdf/small-business-credit-availability-and-relationship-lending-4ab2boh9lc.pdf

Small Business Credit Availability and Relationship Lending: The Importance of Bank Organisational Structure

Is public R&D spending complementary and thus "additional" to private R&D spending, or does it substitute for and tend to "crowd out" private R&D? Conflicting answers are given to this question. We survey the body of available economectric evidence accumulated over the past 35 years. A framework for analysis of the problem i is developed to help organize and summarize the findings of econometric studies based on time series and cross-section data from various levels of aggregation (laboratory, firm, industry, country). The findings overall are ambivalent and the existing literature as as a whole is subject to the criticim that the nature of the "experiment(s)" that the investigators envisage is not adequately specified. We conclude by offering suggestions for improving future empirical research on this issue.

Is Public R&D a Complement or Substitute for Private R&D? A Review of the Econometric Evidence

https://eml.berkeley.edu/~bhhall/papers/DavidHallToole%20RP00.pdf

https://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/6ahyytinen.pdf

Do financial constraints hold back innovation and growth?: Evidence on the role of public policy

Using a new data set covering a sample of UK firms, 1989-1995, we study the impact of innovation and innovation assets on firm value. We find, for all reporting firms, that the flow of R&D and the use of new technologies (as measured by investment in tangible assets) have significant positive impacts on market value. A patent count variable is insignificant in cross section estimates, although significant but impacting negatively in panel estimates. A sample of firms reporting their R&D for the first time yields much larger estimates of the impact of R&D on market value than in the sample of all reporting firms.

Innovation and the Market Value of UK Firms, 1989-1995

We study the expected welfare effects of targeted R&D subsi- dies using project-level data from Finland. We model the application and R&D investment decisions of firms and the subsidy-granting decision of the public agency in charge of the program. Our model and institutional environment allow us to identify different benefits and costs of the R&D subsidy program. We find that expected effects of subsidies are very het- erogeneous and estimated application costs low on average. The social rate of return on targeted subsidies is 30% to 50%, but spillover effects of subsidies are smaller than effects on firm profits.

Estimating the benefits of targeted R&D subsidies

Using a new data set covering a sample of UK firms, 1989-1995, we study the impact of innovation and innovation assets on firm value. We find, for all reporting firms, that the now of R&D and the use of new technologies (as measured by investment in tangible assets) have significant positive impacts on market value. A patent count variable is insignificant in cross section estimates, although significant but impacting negatively in panel estimates. A sample of firms reporting their R&D for the first dine yields much larger estimates of the impact of R&D on market value than in the sample of all reporting firms. Copyright 2002 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/63986/1/349558183.pdf

Otto Toivanen

Papers

Do financial constraints hold back innovation and growth?: Evidence on the role of public policy

Innovation and the Market Value of UK Firms, 1989-1995

Estimating the benefits of targeted R&D subsidies

Innovation and the Market Value of UK Firms, 1989-1995

Intergenerational effects in the diffusion of new technology: the case of mobile phones