Do financial derivatives enhance or impede innovation? We aim to answer this question by examining the relationship between equity options markets and standard measures of firm innovation. Our baseline results show that firms with more options trading activity generate more patents and patent citations per dollar of R&D invested. We then investigate how more active options markets affect firms' innovation strategy. Our results suggest that firms with greater trading activity pursue a more creative, diverse and risky innovation strategy. We discuss potential underlying mechanisms and show that options appear to mitigate managerial career concerns that would induce managers to take actions that boost short-term performance measures. Finally, using several econometric specifications that try to account for the potential endogeneity of options trading, we argue that the positive effect of options trading on firm innovation is causal.

This first volume in a three-volume exposition of Shubik's vision of "mathematical institutional economics" explores a one-period approach to economic exchange with money, debt, and bankruptcy. This is the first volume in a three-volume exposition of Martin Shubik's vision of "mathematical institutional economics"--a term he coined in 1959 to describe the theoretical underpinnings needed for the construction of an economic dynamics. The goal is to develop a process-oriented theory of money and financial institutions that reconciles micro- and macroeconomics, using as a prime tool the theory of games in strategic and extensive form. The approach involves a search for minimal financial institutions that appear as a logical, technological, and institutional necessity, as part of the "rules of the game." Money and financial institutions are assumed to be the basic elements of the network that transmits the sociopolitical imperatives to the economy. Volume 1 deals with a one-period approach to economic exchange with money, debt, and bankruptcy. Volume 2 explores the new economic features that arise when we consider multi-period finite and infinite horizon economies. Volume 3 will consider the specific role of financial institutions and government, and formulate the economic financial control problem linking micro- and macroeconomics.

Die Fragen, wie der Arbeitsmarkt funktioniert und welchen Einfluss die Politik ausüben kann, sind Dauerbrenner in der gesellschaftlichen und politischen Debatte. Das hierzu nötige Wissen speist sich aus der Arbeitsmarktforschung, die häufig Impulse aus dem Alltagsgeschäft der Arbeitsmarktpolitik bekommt. Umgekehrt laden Fortschritte in der Methodenentwicklung und der Datenerschließung die Arbeitsmarktpolitik dazu ein, neue Fragen aufzuwerfen, die bisher nicht beantwortet werden konnten. Michael Stops greift solche Entwicklungen auf und fokussiert drei Themenbereiche: - Berufliche Mobilität und Effizienz des Arbeitsmarktausgleichs - Die Entwicklung der Effizienz des Arbeitsmarktausgleichs vor, während und nach den Jahren der deutschen Arbeitsmarktreformen 2003-2005 auf beruflichen Teilarbeitsmärkten - Die Wirkung des flächendeckenden Mindestlohns in Großbritannien auf die Beschäftigung 1999-2012