- Author
- Year
- 2008
- Title
- Entrepreneurs and new ideas
- Journal
- RAND Journal of Economics
- Volume | Issue number
- 39 | 4
- Pages (from-to)
- 1105-1125
- Document type
- Article
- Faculty
- Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB)
- Institute
- Amsterdam Business School Research Institute (ABS-RI)
- Abstract
-
We study how early-stage new ideas are turned into successful businesses. Even promising ideas can be unprofitable if they fail on one dimension, such as technical feasibility, correspondence to market demand, legality, or patentability. To screen good ideas, the entrepreneur needs to hire experts who evaluate the idea along their dimensions of expertise. Sharing the idea, however, creates the risk that the expert would steal it. Yet, the idea-thief cannot contact any other expert, lest he should in turn steal the idea. Thus, stealing leads to incomplete screening and is unattractive if the information of the other expert is critical and highly complementary. In such cases, the entrepreneur can form a partnership with the experts, thus granting them the advantage of accessing each other's information. Yet, very valuable ideas cannot be shared because it is too tempting to steal them.
- URL
- go to publisher's site
- Language
- Undefined/Unknown
- Persistent Identifier
- https://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.298135
- Downloads
-
Pre-review manuscript (preprint)(Submitted manuscript)
Disclaimer/Complaints regulations
If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library, or send a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.