Many organizations nowadays combine profits with a social mission. This paper reveals a new hidden benefit of the mission: its role in facilitating the emergence of efficiency wages. We show that in a standard gift-exchange principals highly underestimate agents' reciprocity and, thereby, offer...

We analyze the economic consequences of strategic delegation of the right to decide between public or private provision of a governmental service and/or the authority to negotiate and renegotiate with the chosen service provider. Our model encompasses both bureaucratic delegation from a...

This paper studies the impact of hospital competition on waiting times. We use a Salop-type model, with hospitals that differ in (geographical) location and, potentially, waiting time, and two types of patients; high-benefit patients who choose between neighbouring hospitals (competitive...

We develop a model where firms profit from coercing workers into employment under conditions violating national law and international conventions and where bureaucrats benefit from accepting bribes from detected perpetrators. Firms and bureaucrats are heterogeneous. Employers differ in their...

This paper explores the dynamics of press freedom around events that threaten or oust the incumbent regime of a country. While democracies on average grant the press more freedom, our theoretical starting point is that democracies and autocracies may have similar incentives to protect the power...

The optimal transition to a low-carbon economy must account for adjustment costs in switching from dirty to clean capital, technological progress, and economic and climatic shocks. We study the low-carbon transition using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with emissions abatement...

A relatively high labor-intensity in government-run entities need not imply slack in their organization. Rather, it is a rational reaction to various forms of wage tax advantage that the public sector has over private firms. Even though an unequal tax treatment of public and private sectors...

International comparisons show that the reasons why e-government development in Germany does not occupy the desired “top spot” in rankings lie primarily in the inadequate provision of online services with little corresponding user orientation. In order to provide better and faster public...

I examine the extent to which public sector outsourcing relates to public employment in OECD countries. I use new panel data on public sector outsourcing. The sample includes 26 countries over the period 2009-2015. Contrary to common expectations, the results do not suggest that public sector...