This paper analyzes the impact of heterogeneous (social) preferences on the weighting and combination of performance measures as well as on a firm’s profitability. We consider rivalry, egoism and altruism as extreme forms within the continuum of possible preferences and show that the principal...

Due to exceptionally low birth rates, the dynamism of Europe will be lagging behind that of other regions of the world for the time being. The paper assembles a rich body of comparative empirical data to clarify the extent of the demographic problems for the EU countries. It advances the view...

A labor market is considered that is characterized by job competition over job ladders. Firms paying more for comparable jobs can attract workers with better background characteristics (with general human capital) and will lose fewer trained workers (with general and firm-specific human...

In this study we analyze how markets work in the Information Society. In particular we concentrate on three important markets: the software market, the broadcasting market and "technology markets" where intellectual property rights can be traded. All these markets are characterized by modes of...

The ability to solve problems of collective action is crucial for economic performance. Growth-fostering behavioral propensities such as respecting property, honoring contracts, or helping others are collectively beneficial but individually costly. The paradigmatic formalization of this...

Many people in the European Union fear that Eastern Enlargement leads to major job losses. More recently, these fears about job losses have extended to high skill labor and IT jobs. The paper examines with unique firm level data whether these fears are justified for the two neighboring countries...

In an influential paper Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992) argue that the evidence on the international disparity in levels of per capita income and rates of growth is consistent with a standard Solow model, once it has been augmented to include human capital as an accumulable factor. In a study on...

Most economic models are based on the self-interest hypothesis that assumes that all people are exclusively motivated by their material self-interest. In recent years experimental economists have gathered overwhelming evidence that systematically refutes the self-interest hypothesis and suggests...

This paper surveys recent experimental and field evidence on the impact of concerns for fairness, reciprocity and altruism on economic decision making. It also reviews some new theoretical attempts to model the observed behavior.

This paper analyzes a duopoly model with stochastic demand in which firms first choose their strategy variable and compete afterwards. Contrary to the existing literature, we show that firms do not always choose a quantity which is the variable that induces a smaller degree of competition. The...