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.

In this paper, we start by considering market models with fixed costs; in such a context, we characterize the absence of arbitrage opportunity and we provide pricing rules. We then apply these results to extend some classical interest rate and option pricing models. In particular, we prove that...

The paper studies equilibria for economies with imperfect competition and non-convex technologies. Following Negishi firms maximise profits under downward-sloping perceived demand functions. Negishi's assumptions, in particular the assumption of a single monopolistic competitor in each market,...

This paper examines characteristics of cooperative behavior in a repeated, n-person, continuous action generalization of a Prisoner's Dilemma game. When time preferences are heterogeneous and bounded away from one, how "much" cooperation can be achieved by an ongoing group? How does group...

In a two-stage two-public good experiment, we study the effect that subjects’ possibility of contributing to a public good in the first stage of the game has on the voluntary contributions to the second public good. Our results show that subjects do not follow either the Nash strategy or the...

We run a public goods experiment with four different treatments. The payoff function is chosen such that the Nash equilibrium (NE) and the collective optimum (CO) are both in the interior of the strategy space. We test the effect of varying the level of the collective optimum on contributions....

The recent literature suggests that people have social preferences with a self-serving bias. Our data analysis reveals that the stylized fact of declining cooperation in repeated public goods experiments results from this bias and adaptation.

Charities publicize the donations they receive, generally according to dollar categories rather than the exact amount. Donors in turn tend to give the minimum amount necessary to get into a category. These facts suggest that donors have a taste for having their donations made public. This paper...

This paper surveys a selection of the literature on the private provision of public goods using the Kolm triangle. (The Kolm triangle is the analogue of an Edgeworth box in an economy with a public good.) We provide simple geometrical proofs of various established results using this graphical...

Current analysis addresses an apparently critical issue of wealth circulation in the society. We try to play a game with the welfare- related burden of taxation. Thus, the Negotiator No.1 stands up for citizens legal and moral rights to social services. The Negotiator No.2 proceeds from the...