In this paper, I study industry-university relations in a principal- agent framework. Following the existing literature, these relations are interpreted in two ways: (1) as occurring through spillovers of knowledge among different groups of researchers, working for different institutional...

A fundamental issue in governance research is how boards can be chosen through a process partially controlled by the CEO but yet can still be somewhat effective in monitoring the CEO. We offer an answer based on a model in which board effectiveness is a function of the board's independence....

This paper shows how fixed costs can play an important role in determining the structure of organizations. Applications considered include layoffs, downsizing, heterogeneity among firms, and the structure of hierarchies. Agency problems as a source of fixed costs are also considered.

This paper explores leadership within organizations. Leadership is distinct from authority because following a leader is a voluntary rather than coerced activity of the followers. This paper considers how a leader induces rational followers to follow her in situations when the leader has...

The replacement of wage-labour farms by family farms in Central and Eastern Europe during the transformation has been more limited than was initially expected. In this paper a formal framework is developed in order to analyse the behaviour of family farms and socialist-style farms in the...

Conviction rates in Japan exceed 99 percent -- why? On the one hand, because Japanese prosecutors are badly understaffed they may prosecute only their strongest cases and present judges only with the most obviously guilty defendants. On the other, because Japanese judges can be reassigned by the...

In this paper we explain the prevalence of explicit contracts of employment, particularly those that embody high- rather than low-powered incentives and clauses that supersede the common law defaults. Our analysis is based on an understanding of two fundamental problems that arise when agency...

We use new firm-level data to examine the effects of spinoffs and privatization on corporate performance in a rapidly emerging market economy. Unlike the existing literature, which analyzes spinoffs almost exclusively in advanced economies, we control for accompanying ownership changes and the...

This essay brings fiscal federalism theory into contact with the knowledge perspective to economic organization. The question addressed is: can a central government be justified in the context of fiscal federalism on grounds of economic organization? We point out that if one looks at the...