A long-standing conjecture is that winner-take-all games such as patent races lead to the survival of risk-takers and the extinction of risk-averters. In many species a winner-take-all game determines the males' right to reproduce, and the same argument suggests that males will evolve to be...

We study selection contests in which the strategic variable is degree of risk rather than amount of effort. The selection efficiency of such contests is examined. We show that the selection efficiency of a contest may be improved by limiting the competition in two ways; a) by having a small...

We provide empirical evidence that risk sharing enhances specialization in production. To the best of our knowledge, this well-established and important theoretical proposition has not been tested before. Our empirical procedure is summarized as follows. First, we construct a measure of...

I consider two seemingly unrelated puzzles; 1. Why is relative performance evaluation (RPE) used less in CEo compensation than agency theory suggests? 2. Why is sometimes, e.g., for fund managers, a mediocre performance more highly rewarded than excellence? I consider a simple tournament model,...

We explore risk sharing patterns among European Community (EC) countries and among OECD countries during the period 1966-90. We find that, for OECD as well as for EC countries, about 40 percent of shocks to GDP are smoothed at the one year frequency, with about half the smoothing achieved...

We study the Nash bargaining solution of a problem in which two agents bargain over an uncertain outcome. Under the assumptions of risk neutrality and of constant absolute risk aversion, we study the way that solution varies, ex ante, when we vary the beliefs of one agent. Changing an agent`s...

Maximizing the probability of bypassing an aspiration level, and taking increasing risks to recover previous losses are well-documented behavioral tendencies. They are compatible with individual utility functions that are S-shaped, as suggested in Prospect Theory (Kahneman and Tversky 1979). We...

The paper generalizes Blackwell's theorem, according to which the welfare effects of an improvement in information are positive to certain class equilibrium production economies. The consumer preferences in this class of economies exhibit either constant relative risk of constant risk aversion...

The paper constructs a theoretical framework in which the value of information in general equilibrium can be linked to the efficiency of the risk sharing mechanism. We demonstrate that in economies with production, information may have negative value even though no risk sharing markets exist. As...