We study optimal contracts when employees are averse to inequity as modelled by Fehr and Schmidt (1999). A ''selfish'' employer can profitably exploit preferences for equity among his employees by offering contracts which create maximum inequity off-equilibrium and thus, leave employees feeling...

In this paper we study the mechanics of ``leading by example'' in teams. Leadership is beneficial for the entire team when agents are conformists, i.e., dislike effort differentials. We also show how leadership can arise endogenously and discuss what type of leader benefits a team most.

Parental education is found to have a strong positive effect on propensity to enroll in and complete secondary and tertiary education, both in Soviet times and during transition, but mother’s education effect have been weakening. A human capital gap between titular ethnicities and Russian...

This paper decomposes the large regression residuals of income across 84 U.S. Native American economies (USNAEs) into Solow and Solow-like parts. Decomposition is accomplished algebraically. The calculations find a weak to negative correlation between income and Solow residuals, and a strong...

The current research emphasis on institutions as key determinants of economic performance, rather than on resources and resource productivity, has uncovered important questions for further research. For example, if institutions are central to economic performance, then what explains observed...

Institutions either promote or constrain economic performance, but which parts of institutions advance or restrict performance, and why do economies sharing similar institutions sometimes perform differently? This paper is a modest attempt at addressing a small part of these questions. It...

Keeping public finances on a sustainable foundation while the population ages is clearly a problem in Finland, as in many other western countries. The shrinking of the working-age population, ageing of the labour force, and growth in the number of very old persons form a difficult combination...

The current optimum population models found in economic literature define static optimum population used in forming policy i.e. at a given instant what should be the optimum number of people in a (closed) economy. We believe that although this definition is useful, it is very limiting as far as...

Divided societies in the developing world experience wasteful struggles for power. We study the relationship between political stability and resources wasted in the struggle within a model of competitive power contests. The model of power contests is similar in structure to models describing...

This note draws upon ecological models to describe the structure and equilibrium conditions of a generalized economic canopy consisting of three interactive economies assumed to be in competitive epiphytic, parasitic, and host relationships to each other. The maintained hypothesis is that...