Advocates of fair value accounting believe that fair valuesprovide more relevant measures of assets, liabilities, andearnings than do historical costs. These advocates assertthat fair value accounting better reflects underlying economicvalues. The advantages of this method—and thecorresponding...

[...]The loss of manufacturing jobs has created a widespreadsense that manufacturing in New York City has nofuture, that the decline is unstoppable and “largely inevitableand foreordained” (Fitch 1993, p. 107). Even theoptimistic report of the Commission on the Year 2000,New York Ascendant,...

Much of the discourse about regional andlocal economic development strategiesin the United States over the pasttwenty-five years has looked like asearch for general rules. Very few such rules have emerged,in part because—like all policy debates—there have beenlarge inputs of ideology and...

We present evidence on the effect of social connections between workers and managerson productivity in the workplace. To evaluate whether the existence of social connections isbeneficial to the firm’s overall performance, we explore how the effects of social connectionsvary with the strength...

This paper presents evidence on how farmers’ decisions to adopt a new crop, sunflower,relate to the adoption choices of farmers in their social network of family and friends. Weshow that the relationship is shaped as an inverse-U, suggesting social effects are positivewhen there are few...

We present evidence on whether workers have social preferences by comparing workers’ productivityunder relative incentives, where individual effort imposes a negative externality on others,to their productivity under piece rates, where it does not. We find that the productivity of theaverage...

The ability to cooperate in collective action problems — such as those relating to the useof common property resources or the provision of local public goods — is a key determinant ofeconomic performance. In this paper we discuss two aspects of collective action problemsin developing...

This study analyzes a two-country dynamic general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities,monopolistic competition and producer currency pricing. A quadratic approximation to the utility ofthe consumers is derived and assumed as the policy objective function of the policymakers.It is shown...

An organization will often use a specialized technical language that is un-derstood by its members but not by others. We develop a theory of optimalorganizational languages and identify a key trade-o¤ between facilitatinginternal communication and encouraging communication with other...

In this paper we analyze the effect of inequality in the distribution of endowments of privateinputs (like land, capital) on production efficiency through its effect on the voluntary provisionof collective inputs (like irrigation, public research) that are complementary in production withthose...