In many organizations, reward decisions depend on subjective performance evaluations. However, evaluating an employee's performance is often difficult. In this paper, we develop a model in which the employee is uncertain about his own performance and about the manager's ability to assess him....

We explore how public opinion polls affect candidates' campaign spending in political competition. Generally, polls lead to (more) asymmetric behavior. Under a majority rule there always exists an equilibrium in which the initially more popular candidate invests more in the campaign and thereby...

We augment the standard cartel formation game from non-cooperative coalition theory, often applied in the context of international environmental agreements on climate change, with the possibility that singletons support coalition formation without becoming coalition members themselves. Rather,...

Xiaokai Yang's theory of economic specialization under increasing returns to scale is a formal development of the fundamental Smith-Young theorem on the extent of the market and the social division of labor. In this theory specialization and, thus, the social division of labor is firmly embedded...

This discussion paper led to a chapter in .Voting Power and Procedures: Essays in Honour of Dan Felsenthal and Moshé Machover', (eds. R. Fara, D. Leech, and M. Salles), pp 41-64, 2014. The main purpose of the present paper is to disentangle the mix-up of the notions of success and satisfaction...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in 'Public Choice', 151, 757-787. <P> Power is a core concept in the analysis and design of organizations. One of the problems with the extant literature on positional power in hierarchies is that it is mainly restricted to the analysis of power in...</p>

We study two aspects of globalization. It allows a decision-maker to go beyond his own local experience and to learn from other decision-makers in addressing common problems. This improves the identification and diffusion of best practices. It also provides extra information to `markets' that...

This discussion paper led to a chapter in 'Power, Freedom and Voting' (eds. M. Braham and F. Steffen), Springer, pp 57-81, 2008.<p> Power is a core concept in the analysis and design of organisations. In this paper we consider positional power in hierarchies. One of the problems with the extant...</p>

We study the effects of a field experiment designed to motivate employee ideas, at a large technology company. Employees were encouraged to submit ideas on process and product improvements via an online system. In the experiment, the company randomized 19 account teams into treatment and control...

This paper studies how social relationships between managers and employees affect relational incentive contracts. To this end we develop a simple dynamic principal-agent model where both players may have feelings of altruism or spite toward each other. The contract may contain two types of...