Owners of private companies often invest a substantial share of their net worth in one company, which exposes them to idiosyncratic risk. For US companies we investigate whether owners require compensation for lack of diversification in the form of higher returns to equity. Exposure to...

Purpose – The main purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between state economic development incentives programs and entrepreneurial activity. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use panel data and a fixed-effects model to examine the determinants of five measures of...

This paper analyzes the theory of “entrepreneurial incentives” in the work of Israel Kirzner. It argues that there is a logical problem with the notion of profit opportunities as exogenous causal agents: Without additional assumptions, the existence of opportunities alone does not...

Many industrialized economies have seen a rapid rise in top income inequality and in the globalization of production since the 1980s. In this paper I propose an open economy model of executive pay to study how offshoring affects the pay level and incentives of top earners. The model introduces a...

Both countries and subnational governments commonly engage in competition for mobile capital, offering generous location incentives to attract investment. The use of tax incentives is a paradox, whereby fiscally strained governments offer lucrative tax treatment to firms, yet the economics...