We focus on aspects of differential awareness that give rise to contractual disputes. Parties to a contract are boundedly rational as the state space available to them is coarser than the complete state space. Hence, they may disagree as to which state of the world has occurred, and therefore as...

This paper provides an explanation for why many organizations are concerned with “e-mail overload” and implement policies to restrict the use of e-mail in the office. In a theoretical model we formalize the tradeoff between increased productivity from high priority communication and reduced...

Empirical research suggests that – despite strengthening conventional incentives to put in effort – exerting control might reduce worker performance. The present paper shows that intention-based reciprocity can explain such hidden costs of control if individuals differ in their propensity...

We develop a principal–agent model with a moral hazard problem in which the principal has access to a hard signal (the level of output) and a soft behavioral signal (the supervision signal) about the agent's level of effort. In our model, the agent can initiate influence activities and...

Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1986, James M. Buchanan has been one of the pioneers and founders of Public Choice theory and Constitutional Economics. The key to Buchanan's work lies in his deep-rooted devotion to the notions of voluntary exchange, self-determination, individualism,...

Buchanan's work on the methodology of economics includes many references to externalities. Buchanan has emphasized that a subjective conception of economics, and a focus put on exchange rather than on choice, has implications on an analysis of externalities. In this paper, we analyze the reverse...

A government agency wants an infrastructure-based public service to be provided. Our experimental study compares two different modes of provision. In a public–private partnership, the two tasks of building the infrastructure and operating it are delegated to one private contractor (a...

We investigate the roles of productivity and the specificity of inputs for the international sourcing strategy of firms which are part of a multinational network. We present a framework in which firms decide to import from a foreign independent supplier or from their related party abroad...

Using data on U.S. intra-firm and arm's-length imports for 5705 products imported from 220 countries, we examine the determinants of the share of U.S. imports that are intra-firm. We examine two predictions that arise from Antràs (2003), Antràs and Helpman (2008) and Antràs and Helpman...

We model an economy where it is beneficial for high-type organizations to collaborate with other high types, and where this assortative-matching pattern allows informed financiers to provide inexpensive funds to partner companies of their high-type ventures. The expected funding benefit...