Working Papers

We survey modern models of delegation which assume that a boss and subordinate pursue their own goals. Among the major themes covered are the following: the conditions under which the boss will prefer to delegate versus those in which she will…

Mistakes give us a window into the brain. Just as optical illusions help us understand visual information processing, mistaken choices help us understand decision-making. The mistakes described below suggest that economics can usefully…

This paper examines the impact of trade liberalization episodes on movements of labor across sectors. The aim is to evaluate the empirical support for two classes of models: those where the effects of trade are mediated by structural change, and…

This paper examines empirical evidence on the impact that venture capitalists have on the development path of new firms. We use a hand-collected data set on Silicon Valley start-up companies that allows us to “look inside the black box” and…

Venture capital firms have unique capabilities in terms of dealing with high uncertainty, high degrees of information asymmetry, and providing access to a strategic network. This study examines the association between the presence of venture…

This study examines the relation between analyst coverage and firms’ intangible assets. We assume that firms with substantial intangible assets, most of which are not recognized in firms’ financial statements, have more information asymmetry…

Because of a little noticed provision of the Federal Elections Campaign Act, slightly more than a third of the members of the 102nd House of Representatives were allowed to convert unspent campaign fund to personal use - but only if they left…

This study investigates whether CEOs manage investors’ expectations downward to scheduled stock option awards. Because executive stock options are typically awarded with a fixed exercise price equal to the stock price on the award date, we…

We present difficulties with realizing the capacity of queueing networks with batch servers under well known scheduling disciplines. We introduce a family of scheduling policies called discrete-review policies, which not only guarantee capacity…

This paper presents a complete information model of competitive lobbying in a majority-rule institution where lobbying consists of support provided to legislators in the form of politically valuable resources. Two lobbyists alternate in…

Gallant, Hansen and Tauchen (1990) show how to use conditioning information optimally to construct a sharper unconditional variance bound on pricing kernels. The literature predominantly resorts to a simple, sub-optimal procedure that scales…

Several decades of research on the psychology of justice leads one to the almost overwhelming conclusion that people generally prefer to believe that the social system to which they belong is fair, legitimate, and justifiable than that it is…

We investigate a simple dynamic model of firm behavior in which firms compete by investing in capacity that is used to provide a good or service to their customers. There is a fixed total market of customers whose demands for the good or service…

In this paper we present a canonical setting that illustrate the need for explicitly modeling interactions between manufacturing and marketing/sales decisions in a firm. We consider a single firm that sells an innovative product with a given…

Stock market liberalizations lead private investment booms. In a sample of 11 developing countries that liberalized, 9 experience growth rates of private investment above their non-liberalization median in te first year after liberalizing. In the…

This paper presents a finite-horizon, game-theoretic model of the dynamics of multidimensional collective choice and a set of analytical and computational results characterizing those dynamics. The focus is on continuing collective goods programs…

In this chapter, the authors review estimation techniques for macro diffusion models. The chapter begins by discussing estimation of single equation models under the assumption of time invariant parameters. The authors then forcus on recent…

Background. There is sufficient cadaveric kidney supply to meet the demands of suitable transplant candidates. The comparative equity and efficiency characteristics of alternative organ allocation strategies have not been rigorously examined.…

Most theories of interpersonal and intergroup behavior stress the role of self-serving and group-serving motives in the choice of procedures for allocating resources and determining representation. The present research suggests that such motives…

The de-diversification activity of publicy-held, American firms from 1985-1994 is examined. Prominatent accounts of such behavior depict firm as returning to traditional, largely efficiency-based, patterns of diversification. This paper…