We propose a new theory for downsizing, based on strategic reasons, rather than technological ones. A crisis may lead to a decrease in the willingness to cooperate in an organization, and therefore to a bad equilibrium. A consensual downsizing episode may signal credibly that survivors are...

We study the earning structure and the equilibrium assignment of workers to firms in a model in which workers have social preferences and skills are perfectly substitutable in production. We allow firms to offer long terms contracts and for frictions in the labour market in the form of mobility...

We define a model of peer effects where the intra-group externality is rooted on the network of bilateral influences in the population, rather than consisting on an average effect. Using game theory, we then map the geometric intricacies of this network structure to the distribution of...

The existence of a private cost borne by audited taxpayers affects the tax enforcement policy. This is so because tax auditors will face now two sources of uncertainty, namely, the typical one associated with taxpayers' income and that associated with the taxpayers' idiosyncratic attitude...

From the classical gold standard up to the current ERM2 arrangement of the European Union, target zones have been a widely used exchange regime in contemporary history. This paper presents a benchmark model that rationalizes the choice of target zones over the rest of regimes: the fixed rate,...

Emerging market crises are characterized by large swings in both macroeconomic fundamentals and asset prices. The economic significance of observed movements in macroeconomic variables is obscured by the brief and extreme nature of crises. In this paper we propose to study the macroeconomic...

Confidence in decision making is an important dimension of managerial behavior. However, what is the relation between confidence, on the one hand, and the fact of receiving or expecting to receive feedback on decisions taken, on the other hand? To explore this and related issues in the context...

The purpose of this paper is to generalize the theory of "equal share analysis", developed by Selten in 1972, to the one in which every player has a positive weight. We show that for any positive vector of weights, it is always possible to find a coalition structure and a payoff vector forming a...

Do high levels of human capital foster economic growth by facilitating technology adoption? If so, countries with more human capital should have adopted more rapidly the skilled-labor augmenting technologies becoming available since the 1970's. High human capital levels should therefore have...

This paper develops a comprehensive framework for the quantitative analysis of the private and fiscal returns to schooling and of the effect of public policies on private incentives to invest in education. This framework is applied to 14 member states of the European Union. For each of these...