A fundamental issue in governance research is how boards can be chosen through a process partially controlled by the CEO but yet can still be somewhat effective in monitoring the CEO. We offer an answer based on a model in which board effectiveness is a function of the board's independence....

This paper studies the ability of an agent and a principal to achieve the first-best outcome when the agent invests in an asset that has greater value if owned by the principal than by the agent. When contracts can be renegotiated, a well-known danger is that the principal can holdup the agent,...

This paper explores leadership within organizations. Leadership is distinct from authority because following a leader is a voluntary rather than coerced activity of the followers. This paper considers how a leader induces rational followers to follow her in situations when the leader has...

The design of the agricultural reform in Bulgaria in the early 90-es provides researchers with a natural experiment for testing the effect of the protracted absence of clearly defined property rights on economic outcomes. Special rules governing the restitution of orchards made one group of...

The present paper develops a basic framework for evaluating and optimizing profits in a business operation. In developing a business we are often faced with an infinity of choices ranging from what products or services to sell and what customers to target to how to structure and manage the...

The question this paper addresses is whether a government can regulate a Cournot oligopolist market to give higher level of welfare without changing either the strategic variable (output quantity) or the way prices are determined (by an auctioneer). The problem is set as a two- stage game played...

In this paper, we study an auction where bidders only know the number of potential applicants. After seeing their values for the object, bidders decide whether or not to enter the auction. Players may not want to enter the auction since they have to pay participation costs. We characterize the...

Une importante littérature empirique est dévolue à la question du lien entre les facteurs financiers et les performances économiques des firmes. Dérivées du rejet de l’hypothèse classique de non incidence de la structure financière sur la dépense ou inscrites plutôt dans une logique...

We provide an overview of the workings of the National Science Foundation and the proposal review process, as well as some guidance in writing proposals for funding.

Five waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), 1985-1989 including both wealth supplements, are used to construct an intertemporal budget constraint for selected single headed households. A new functional form of the dual consumer profit function rationalizing consumption, labor supply...