This essay reviews some findings in cognition sciences and examines their consequences for the analysis of institutions. It starts by exploring how humans’ specialization in producing knowledge ensures our success in dominating the environment but also changes fast our environment. So fast...

In most firms, managers periodically assess workers' performance. Evidence suggests that managers withhold information during these reviews, and some observers argue that this necessarily reduces surplus. This paper assesses the validity of this argument when workers have career concerns....

Do the contests with the largest prizes attract the most able contestants? To what extent do contestants avoid competition? In this paper, we show, theoretically and empirically, that the distribution of abilities plays a crucial role in determining contest choice. Sorting exists only when the...

Human beings increase their productivity by specializing their resources and exchanging their products. The organization of exchange is costly, however, because specialized activities need coordination and incentives have to be aligned. This work first describes how these exchanges are organized...

The largest fresh meat brand names in Spain are analyzed here to study how quality is signaled in agribusiness and how the underlying quality -assurance organizations work. Results show, first, that organizational form varies according to the specialization of the brand name. Publicly-controlled...

I provide a justification of intellectual property rights as a source of static efficiency gains in manufacturing, rather than dynamic benefits from greater innovation. I develop a property-rights model of a supply relationship with two dimensions of non-contractible investment. In equilibrium,...