Perfectly discriminating contests (or all pay auction) are widely used as a model of situations where individuals devote resources to win some prize. In reality such contests are often preceded by investments of the contestants into their ability to fight in the contest. This paper studies a two...

We analyze firms’ investment behavior, differentiating firms according to the cash flow levels they experience during their lifecycles. We consequently consider the firm as the basic unit and not firm-year observations. Firms with persistent positive cash flow show higher investment-cash flow...

In November 2001, a TV program showed that many large Dutch construction companies participated in price fixing. We analyze how one such company, Heijmans, reacted to the reputation crises after the TV program by introducing a code of conduct. We present the outcomes of a questionnaire survey...

In this paper I ask whether a model of ¯rm capital accumulation with entry and exit calibrated to match the investment regularities of U.S. establishments is capable of generating the dependence of ¯rm dynamics on size and age. Firms face uncertainty in the form of idiosyncratic productivity...

Theoretical models point at various channels of the impact of inflation on corporate investment. This article attempts to answer the question what are the direction and strength of this possible impact examining the relationship between corporate investment and inflation on the sample of 21 OECD...

The business enterprise in the real world wrestles with fundamental uncertainty and instability. Key enterprise decisions such as pricing, financing, and investment are thus made strategically rather than optimally. Heterodox economists are, however, divided in the account of business...

Corporations discover that social responsibility pays off. However, sometimes doing what is ethical will prove costly to a company. The purpose of this article is to clarify this trade-off by developing an economic model that describes the choice between profits and principles. The model is used...

In this paper, we provide general closed-form solutions to the incomplete-market random-coefficient dynamic optimization problem without the restrictive assumption of exponential or HARA utility function. Moreover, we explicitly express the optimal portfolio as a function of the optimal...

We analyze the effects of CEOs' layoff risk on their risk choice while overseeing a firm. A CEO, whose managerial ability is unknown, is fired if her expected ability is below average. Her risk choice changes the informativeness of output and market's belief about her ability. She can decrease...