We explore how examiner behavior is altered by the time allocated for reviewing patent applications. Insufficient examination time may hamper examiner search and rejection efforts, leaving examiners more inclined to grant invalid applications. To test this prediction, we use application-level...

We develop a simple algorithm for detecting exam cheating between students who copy off one another's exam. When this algorithm is applied to exams in a general science course at a top university, we find strong evidence of cheating by at least 10 percent of the students. Students studying...

Technological progress is typically a result of trial-and-error research by competing firms. While some research paths lead to the innovation sought, others result in dead ends. Because firms benefit from their competitors working in the wrong direction, they do not reveal their dead-end...

Workfare programs are one of the most popular social protection and employment policy instruments in the developing world. They evoke the promise of efficient targeting, as well as immediate and lasting impacts on participants' employment, earnings, skills and behaviors. This paper evaluates...

This paper reports the results of a survey of over 1500 employees who faced compulsory reductions of 10 percent in hours of work and earnings during the second half of 1985. The workers were asked how they used the free time and how they viewed the program, and their answers were analyzed in...

Using the employee opinion survey responses from several thousand employees working in 193 branches of a major U.S. bank, we consider whether there is a distinctive workplace component to employee attitudes despite the common set of corporate human resource management practices that cover all...

We examine an indirect but potentially deadly consequence of the "missing girls" phenomenon. A shortage of brides causes many parents with sons of marriageable age to work harder and seek higher-paying but potentially dangerous jobs. In response, employers invest less in workplace safety, which...