Money matters, but is that all? This column presents evidence that social incentives can boost productivity in sectors that rely on pro-social behaviour such as health, education, and social care. It argues that this may help explain the growing popularity of Corporate Social Responsibility...

We show that, in general, consistent estimates of cost pass-through are not obtained from reduced-form regressions of price on cost. We derive a formal approximation for the bias that arises even under standard orthogonality conditions. We provide guidance on the conditions under which bias may...

Mit Argumenten aus der "Theorie des Marktversagens" und der "Neuen Politischen Ökonomie" kann gezeigt werden, daß Universitäten und Forschungsinstitute spezielle "Öffentliche Güter" produzieren, die eine Grundfinanzierung durch den Staat unter Effizienzgesichtspunkten rechtfertigen....

Given the preferential tax treatment afforded nonprofit firms, policymakers and researchers have been interested in whether the nonprofit sector provides higher nursing home quality relative to its for-profit counterpart. However, differential selection into for-profits and nonprofits can lead...

This paper examines the effect of the change of state shares in a state-owned enterprise (SOE) on the efficiency of the whole society and the payoff of the government. This issue is addressed by setting up a mixed oligopolistic competition model and dividing the analysis into two cases: closed...

We examine whether collective intelligence helps achieve a neutral point of view using data from a decade of Wikipedia's articles on US politics. Our null hypothesis builds on Linus' Law, often expressed as "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." Our findings are consistent with a narrow...

Protecting the environment during economic growth is a challenge facing every country. This paper focuses on two regulatory measures that China has adopted to incentivize air quality improvement: publishing a daily air pollution index (API) for major cities since 2000 and linking the API to...

Credit Unions are cooperative financial institutions specializing in the basic financial needs of certain groups of consumers. A distinguishing feature of credit unions is the legal requirement that members share a common bond. This organizing principle recently became the focus of national...

Contributing to a social cause can be an important driver for workers in the public and non-profit sector as well as in firms that engage in Corporate Social Responsibility activities. This paper compares the effectiveness of social incentives to financial incentives using an online real effort...

This paper analyzes the role of public and private responsibility in the provision of public goods. We emphasize that a typical public good will require many different inputs which raises the possibility of partnerships to exploit comparative advantages of different parties. But hold-up problems...