Many economic and political decisions are the outcome of strategic contests for a given prize. The nature of such contests can be determined by a designer who is driven by political considerations with a specific political culture. The main objective of this study is to analyze the effect of...

This paper presents a model in which promotion of employees within the internal firm hierarchy is determined by the individuals' allocation of time between promotion/rent-seeking and productive activity. We consider the effect of an increase in the employer's knowledge (information) regarding...

The social costs of rent seeking are generally evaluated with respect to rent dissipation. A common assumption is complete rent dissipation so that the value of a contested rent is the value of social loss. When rent seekers earn taxable income, there is interdependence between the social cost...

Government intervention often gives rise to contests and the government can influence their outcome by choosing their type. We consider a contest with two interest groups: one that is governed by a central planner and one that is not. Rent dissipation is compared under two well-known contest...

We model the aid allocation decision where the donor government has announced that good governance is the criterion for receiving aid. Potential recipients must compete for the aid funds. The structure of the competition is important to the donor in terms of achieving good governance, and to the...

We ask whether the role of employer learning in the wage-setting process depends on skill type and skill importance to productivity. Combining data from the NLSY79 with O*NET data, we use Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery scores to measure seven distinct types of pre-market skills that...

The basis for the empirical research on earnings determination is the Mincer equation. Individuals are assumed to make schooling decisions by maximizing earnings. Leisure costs of schooling and labour supply are neglected which has some empirically implausible implications. This paper shows a...

This paper presents an experiment on learning in repeated games, which complements the analysis of players' actual choices with data on the information acquisition process they follow. Subjects play a repeated Cournot oligopoly, with limited a priori information. The econometrics hinges on a...

Previous research has shown that feedback about past performance has ambiguous effects on subsequent performance. We argue that feedback affects beliefs in different dimensions – namely beliefs about the level of human capital and beliefs about the ability to learn – and this may explain...