Informing
Policy
for Progress

KNOWLEDGE-INTENSIVE PROPERTY RIGHTS (STE-WP-39)

Venture capitalism is a major institutional innovation based on identifying economies of scope in transactions of technological knowledge, bundled with managerial competence, reputation, screening procedures and equity. It has paved the way to the emergence of new surrogate markets for knowledge, i.e. financial markets specialized in trading knowledge-intensive property rights. This development has important benefits […]

Investment Policies in Defense R&D Programs

Investment in advanced defense technologies is a prominent characteristic of modern armed forces. The paper examines the optimal investment policy in developing such technologies, accounting for their S-shaped progress profile and the stochastic nature of the R&D process. We show that the optimal investment is a discontinuous function of the available budget, and that its […]

A National Plan for the Chemical Industry in Israel

The National Plan for the Chemical Industry in Israel is a large project that the Samuel Neaman Institute has been leading since 2004. The project analyzes past and present chemistry and pharmaceutical branches produced in Israel, present alternatives and demonstrates new industry branches in this field. This project compares this industry with other global markets […]

The quality of Israeli academic institutions: what the wages of graduates tell about it?

Higher education in Israel expanded rapidly in the last ten years with the opening of academic colleges. This study examines the return on education, in terms of salaries, of first degree graduates from colleges compared with that of university graduates, controlling for cognitive abilities and socioeconomic characteristics. The use of Propensity Score Matching shows that […]

Reclaiming the Dead Sea, Alternatives for Action

The Dead Sea, the lowest and saltiest sea in the world, is currently in a state of severe environmental degradation. Water extraction from the Jordan River, the Sea of Galilee, and the Yarmouk River for Israel, Jordan, and Syria, as well as the extraction of Dead Sea water for industrial plants in Israel and Jordan, […]