Corporate success stories often resemble a snowball. We show how initial luck in hiring talented people, the resulting technological advantage, superior corporate culture, and statusseeking by workers and by consumers can make small initial differences generate large differences over time.

We consider taxation by a Leviathan government and by a utilitarian government in the presence of heterogenous locations within a country, when migration from one country to another is and is not possible. In a closed economy, a utilitarian government may transfer income from the poor to the...

Corporate success stories often resemble a snowball. We show how initial luck in hiring talented people, the resulting technological advantage, superior corporate culture, and status-seeking by workers and by consumers can make small initial differences generate large differences over time.

Corporate success often resembles a snowball. We show how initial luck in hiring talented people, the resulting technological advantage, superior corporate culture, and status-seeking by workers can make small initial differences generate large differences over time.

This paper develops a theory of consumer boycotts. Some consumers care not only about the products they buy but also about whether the firm behaves ethically. Other consumers do not care about the behavior of the firm but yet may like to give the impression of being ethical consumers....