Cash | EPFL Graph Search

In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins. In bookkeeping and financial accounting, cash is kept in a wallet. Current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-immediately (as in the case of money market accounts). Cash is seen either as a reserve for payments, in case of a structural or incidental negative cash flow or as a way to avoid a downturn on financial markets. Etymology The English word "cash" originally meant "money box", and later came to have a secondary meaning "money". This secondary usage became the sole meaning in the 18th century. The word "cash" comes from the Middle French caisse ("money box"), which comes from the Old Italian cassa, and ultimately from the Latin capsa ("box"). History In Western Europe, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, coins, silver jewelry and hacksilver (silver objects hacked into pieces) were for centuries the only

Managing innovations resulting from university-industry collaborations

Annamaria Conti

We consider a policy regime allowing academic institutions to grant industry the intellectual property rights (IPRs) over invention resulting from collaborations. If a firm plays an important role in generating an invention, the researcher offers the IPRs to the firm, as an incentive to collaborate. However, he retains certain domains where he can exploit an invention without having to apply for a license. The choice of these domains involves a tradeoff. In fact, the researcher either induces the firm's effort, by assigning a broad field of use, or he ensures that he can use an invention in other applications, by granting a narrow field of use. The reverse occurs if it is the researcher who plays an important role in generating an invention. The main difference, however, is that if effort were contractible, the firm could reward the researcher for supplying the first best level of effort, because, unlike the researcher, it is not cash constrained. An empirical analysis, based on École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne research contracts, supports the role of broad fields in bolstering a firm's effort, when the latter is important for generating an invention.

2009

Three essays on university-industry technology transfer and the economics of science

Annamaria Conti

In the first chapter of this thesis, coauthored with Patrick Gaulé, we reexamine the widely held belief, known as the "European Paradox", that while European academic institutions are good at producing academic research outputs, they lag behind US academic institution when it comes to transfer these outputs to the economy. Using new survey data and controlling for standard factors affecting the productivity of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs), we find that European TTOs do not execute less licenses than US TTOs. However, they earn significantly less revenue from licenses. We relate the difference in licensing income to differences in the organization and staffing of TTOs. Specifically, US TTOs employ more staff with experience in industry and appear to have greater flexibility in managing their budget. In the second chapter, we examine a policy regime allowing academic institutions to grant industry the intellectual property rights (IPRs) over invention resulting from collaborations. For projects that are close to the market, where a firm plays an important role in generating an invention, the researcher offers the IPRs to the firm, as an incentive to collaborate. However, he retains certain domains where he can exploit an invention without having to apply for a license. The choice of these domains involves a tradeoff. In fact, the researcher either induces the firm's effort, by assigning a broad field of use, or he ensures that he can use an invention in other applications, by granting a narrow field of use. The reverse occurs for projects that are close to the researcher's laboratory, where it is the researcher who plays an important role in generating an invention. The main difference, however, is that if effort were contractible, the firm could reward the researcher for supplying the first best level of effort, because, unlike the researcher, it is not cash constrained. An empirical analysis, based on École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne research contracts, supports the role of broad fields in bolstering a firm's effort, in projects that are close to the market. The third chapter analyzes the extent of state dependence in obtaining basic and applied science grants and the impact of receiving a grant of one type on the probability of being awarded one of the other type in the future. For this purpose, we used a sample of grants for basic and applied research purposes awarded to academic researchers at the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology. We find that, having controlled for unobserved heterogeneity, there is persistence in obtaining both basic and applied science grants. Moreover, the impact of having obtained, in the past, only grants of one type on the number of grants of the other type awarded to a researcher is not significantly different from the impact of not having received any grant.

EPFL2009

Corporate policies with permanent and transitory shocks

Erwan Morellec

We model the financing, cash holdings, and hedging policies of a firm facing financing frictions and subject to permanent and transitory cash flow shocks. The permanent and transitory shocks generate distinct, sometimes opposite, effects on corporate policies. We use the model to develop a rich set of empirical predictions. In our model, correlated permanent and transitory shocks imply less risk, lower cash savings, and a drop in the value of credit lines. The composition of cash-flow shocks affects the cash-flow sensitivity of cash, which can be positive or negative. Optimal hedging of permanent and transitory shocks may involve opposite positions.

2017

Three essays on university-industry technology transfer and the economics of science

Annamaria Conti

EPFL2009