In this paper we solve a parametric moral hazard model that incorporates risk and inequity aversion. In the model, the worker's effort is not contractible but the employer can link the worker's compensation to the revenue, a measure probabilistically related to the effort. The model can account...

We compare behavior in a one-shot Centipede game across several payoff structures including nonlinear payoff tournaments. Assuming Nash to be optimal, results suggest nonlinear tournament payoffs based on overall relative rewards are not sufficient to increase Nash results in the one-shot...

Using county-level census data from 19th century Prussia, this paper argues that the introduction of the power loom, a key technological innovation in the Industrial Revolution, had a significant impact on labour market outcomes and composition 40 years later. To combat endogeneity, I use a...

By adjusting the strength of IPRs protection, the government can change the extent of knowledge spillovers in R&D. A large spillover rate helps to improve the productivity of the less efficient firms and save on the overall production costs. But, at the same time, it reduces the innovator's...

There is evidence that tax rates have varied considerably through time. In the postwar years, changes in business taxation in the U.S. have occurred at a pace of approximately every three years. The purpose of this research is to examine the implications of tax risk and persistence on...

I present a simple model that formalizes Kahneman's (1973) ideas and experimental work on attention limitations. In addition, I extend his framework to account for the interaction between attention and memory deficits. In particular, I propose that individuals optimally allocate their divisible,...

People are generally reluctant to accept risk. In particular, people overvalue sure gains, relative to outcomes which are merely probable. At the same time, people are also more willing to accept bets when payoffs involve losses rather than gains. I consider how far adaptive learning can go in...

A contest model is constructed to examine the existence of conference bias in college basketball's Ratings Percentage Index (RPI). Though a general RPI bias has been identified in previous literature, this is the first study to address whether the bias is random or systematic in nature. Within...

This paper examines how the incumbency advantage is related to ideological voting or legislative shirking that causes the incumbents to diverge from the preference of the median voter using aggregate data for the U.S. House of Representatives between 1948 and 2000. I find that a rise in the...

Pooled forecasts frequently outperform individual forecasts of economic time series. This paper shows that the introduction of model uncertainty into the formation of expectations can account for the regularity. We conjecture that agents learn in a Bayesian way, using an optimally designed...