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.

The behaviour of US productivity since this book was originally publishedin 1994, has added new relevance to the relationship between profits and productivity. In the long run, productivity growth determines the economic standard of living. This book is divided into three parts: the basis of the first is the empirical finding that, controlling for normal business cycle effects, productivity grows faster when profits have been low than otherwise. The second part discusses how to measure marginal cost using time series data and the third tests a basic assumption that productivity growth is exogenous to labour and capital.

This book shows how the modern corporation must meet the expectations of diverse constiutents who contribute to its existence and success, the stakeholders: resource providers, customers, suppliers, alliance partners, and social and political actors. It argues that the corporation must be seen as an institution engaged in mobilizing resources to create wealth and benefits for all its stakeholders.