We support labour contents as an absolute and reliable measurement unit and as an accounting procedure that expresses the real costs and profits of the economic system. As far as this measurement capacity of labour is concerned, we try to demonstrate, that, from a theoretical point of view, the...

We deal with three subjects, namely, the presence of more than one rate of profit in an economy due to the existence of rents (absolute and monopoly rents); the subordination of the prices and the rate of profit (in price terms) to the real profit or net product, measured in value terms; and the...

We support labour contents as an absolute and reliable measurement unit and as an accounting procedure that expresses the real costs and profits of the economic system. As far as the labour capacity of expressing real social costs and profits is concerned, we highlight the inaccuracy in the...

A rate of profit, expressed in labour magnitudes, that allows matching total plus value with total profits is determined. The relative prices, expressed in wage units, associated with this rate ensure that total profits are equal to the difference between the sum of relative prices and the sum...

Several recent papers argue that contracts provide reference points that affect ex post behavior. We test this hypothesis in a canonical buyer-seller relationship with renegotiation. Our paper provides causal experimental evidence that an initial contract has a highly significant and...

We present an international trade model with multiproduct firms. Firms are heterogeneously endowed with two types of capabilities that jointly determine the trade-off within firms between managing a large portfolio of products and producing at low marginal cost. The model can explain many of the...

This paper reports data from a laboratory experiment on two-period moral hazard problems. The findings corroborate the contract-theoretic insight that even though the periods are technologically unrelated, due to incentive considerations principals can benefit from offering long-term contracts...

We study a continuous-time game of strategic experimentation in which the players try to assess the failure rate of some new equipment or technology. Breakdowns occur at the jump times of a Poisson process whose unknown intensity is either high or low. In marked contrast to existing models, we...

We study endogenous group formation in tournaments employing experimental three-player contests. We find that players in endogenously formed alliances cope better with the moral hazard problem in groups than players who are forced into an alliance. Also, players who are committed to expending...

The compensation of executive board members in Germany has become a highly controversial topic since Vodafone's hostile takeover of Mannesmann in 2000 and it is again in the spotlight since the outbreak of the financial crisis of 2009. Based on unique panel data evidence of the 500 largest firms...