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This dissertation consists of three essays on Finance and Innovation. The first essay argues that openness of research inputs can enable greater exploration of new research lines, particularly by academic researchers. We test this hypothesis by examining a natural experiment: NIH agreements that reduced the access costs imposed on academics regarding certain genetically engineered mice. We find that increased openness encourages the exploration of more diverse research paths, and does not reduce research into the creation of new genetically engineered mice. Overall, our findings highlight a neglected cost of strong intellectual property restrictions: lower levels of exploration leading to a reduction in the diversity of research output. The second essay analyzes clustering in firms’ layoff behavior and its links to financial markets. We develop a model in which managers delay layoffs during good economic states to avoid damaging their reputation. We test the model’s predictions by comparing the layoff behavior of publicly-listed and privately-held firms, and find that the layoffs of public firms are twice as sensitive to recessions. In addition, we find that the firms which cluster layoff announcements at high frequencies are also more likely to engage in mass layoffs during recessions. Our findings suggest that reputation management is an important driver of layoff policies both at daily frequencies and over the business cycle, and can have significant macroeconomic consequences. The third essay explores the relationship between funding availability and innovative output. I develop a theory of credit constraints in multi-stage research, and predict that greater funding leads to both transitions into the private sector and a shift toward shorterhorizon projects. Analyzing the patent output of a panel of life-science researchers linked to top universities, I find that greater funding availability leads to an increase in transitions from academia to the private sector and a higher quantity of patent output, but a decrease research value, innovative scope, and the time horizon of subsequent applications. These results indicate that profit-motivated funding not only increases the quantity of innovation, but also leads to a significant shift in the type of projects being pursued.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-134). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-134). Also available on the Internet.

University press publishing, while often associated with the promotion of academic freedom, may be situated between the poles of resistance and complicity when considering intellectual responses to apartheid. Yet the history of this form of scholarly publishing has largely been ignored thus far, due to a perception that it had little to tell us about either apartheid or the struggle against it. However, the social history of South Africa’s university presses – at Wits, Natal and Unisa, in particular – provides a new angle for examining academic freedom and knowledge production during the apartheid era. Using a hybrid methodology including archival research, historical bibliography, and political sociology, this study aims to examine the origins, publishing lists and philosophies of the university presses through the lens of a continuum of intellectual responses: ranging from collaboration and complicity, to opposition and dissidence. Results show that, over time, the positions and publishing strategies adopted by the South African university presses shifted, becoming more liberal. It is argued, however, that the university presses should not be considered oppositional or anti-apartheid publishers, in part because they did not resist the censorship regime of the government, and in part because they operated within the constraints of publicly funded, bureaucratic institutions of higher education. They nonetheless produced an important, if under-valued, body of work and provided a platform for a variety of academic opinions. Moreover, the university presses faced a variety of challenges in their struggle to survive over the years, including financial pressures, international competition, and wavering institutional support. But perhaps the greatest challenge was a delicate balancing act: an attempt to promote academic freedom within a climate of political repression, censorship and ideology. The study demonstrates the significance of publishing history for an examination of broader issues of social history, as well as the applicability of a wide range of methodological tools for the field of Book History. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Information Science / unrestricted

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This investigation explored whether there was a relationship between comfort in discussing political views and faculty members' political party preferences. The questions of whether political comfort differed based on gender, religious affiliation, academic discipline, and/or institutional affiliation were also explored. Both economics and political science faculty did not report comfort in discussing political views in the context of departmental committee service. Economics faculty either did not report on their colleagues' political views or they disagreed with their colleagues' political views. Political science faculty either did not report on their colleagues' political views or they agreed with their colleagues' political views. Also, this investigation found minimal ethnic and political diversity among the respondents.

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The purpose of this study is to make an analysis of certain factors as they are related to freedom of teaching in Texas. This study will include community relations as well as the conditions within the classroom, as for example, the freedom in discussing controversial ideas.