The coronavirus epidemic has instigated an economic crisis emanating from public health policies involving economic lockdown as well as behavioral reactions of workers and employers. The developed world has not seen such an extent of economic damage since at least the Second World War. We...

This paper proposes a transactions cost theory of total factor productivity. In a world with asymmetric information and transactions costs, effort, and thus productivity, must be induced by incentive schemes. Labor contracts trade off the marginal benefits and the marginal costs of effort. The...

We analyze an overlapping generations model which explicitly includes a secondary asset market. The economy is affected by a onetime shock which causes some of these assets to become toxic. As a response the government may intervene by buying these assets at market value and removing them from...

This note demonstrates that it is easily possible to compute technological parameters out ot national income acconting data in the presence of bargaining in the labor market. Applying the method to US data, we obtain that the output elasticity with respect to capital exceed 0.5.

We use a static framework characterized by both moral hazard and holdup problems. In the model the optimal allocation of bargaining power balances these frictions. We examine the impact of improved monitoring on that optimal allocation and its impact upon effort, investment, profits and rents....

This paper proposes a transactions cost theory of total factor productivity. In a world with asymmetric information and transactions costs, effort, and thus productivity, must be induced by incentive schemes. Labor contracts trade off the marginal benefits and the marginal costs of effort. The...

The article is concerned with understanding the impact of social preferences and wealth inequality on aggregate economic outcomes. We investigate how different manifestations of other-regarding preferences affect incentive contracts at the microeconomic level and how these in turn translate into...

We use a static framework characterized by both moral hazard and holdup problems. In the model the optimal allocation of bargaining power balances these frictions. We examine the impact of improved monitoring on that optimal allocation and its impact upon effort, investment, profits and rents....

This paper focuses on the endogenous determination of effort as a source of productivity growth. The economy is populated by infinitely lived households. Every period, members of each household may choose whether to be self-employed or become employees in a "corporate sector". Labor relations in...