We study a partnership that anticipates its possible dissolution. In our model, partnerships form in order to take advantage of complementary skills; although new opportunities may arise that make partners ̕skills useless. We characterize the optimal, incentive-compatible partnership contract...

Individual leaders have been central to the transformation of political institutions, organizations and many instances of social and economic reform. Why are some leaders able to take advantage of opportunities to successfully catalyze large-scale change while others fail? In this paper we argue...

This paper analyses the cost implications for climate policy in developed countries if developing countries are unwilling to adopt measures to reduce their own GHG emissions. First, we assume that a 450 CO2 (550 CO2e) ppmv stabilisation target is to be achieved and that Non Annex1 (NA1)...

The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in the economic literature. While much is known about 19th century black legal and material conditions, less is known about how 19th century biological conditions were related to the physical environment and...

We study the effect of a declining labor force on the incentives to engage in labor-saving technical change and ask how this effect is influenced by institutional characteristics of the pension scheme. When labor is scarcer it becomes more expensive and innovation investments that increase labor...

This paper examines volatility spillovers from mature to emerging stock markets and tests for changes in the transmission mechanismcontagionduring turbulences in mature markets. Tri-variate GARCH-BEKK models of returns in global (mature), regional, and local markets are estimated for 41 emerging...

This paper studies the role of culture in shaping unemployment outcomes. The empirical analysis is based on local comparisons across a language barrier in Switzerland. This Röstigraben separates cultural groups, but neither labor markets nor political jurisdictions. Local contrasts across the...

This paper uses an oligopoly model with heterogeneous firms to examine how an industry adjusts to rising import competition. The model predicts that in the short run the least efficient firms in the industry become inactive, surviving firms face a fall in output, mark-ups and profits, and the...

I offer a selective review of discounting and climate policy. Analytic and numerical models show that different assumptions greatly change the degree to which decisions about climate policy depend on the discount rate. I discuss a claim that standard models exaggerate the current generation's...