This paper provides novel evidence that female U.S. House Representatives causally increase the U.S. government's demand for products and services provided by female entrepreneurs. Using detailed data on individual contracts between the U.S. federal government and private firms around close U.S....

Organizations are hierarchies with leaders at the top. Why do we have leaders instead of an algorithm making decisions? The theory of the firm recognizes benefits to centralizing authority but these organizational benefits from hierarchy have not been clearly separated from the specific...

This paper develops a simple economic model to examine how leadership styles in organizations depend on the prevailing wage-setting conditions for workers. In particular, we examine a leader who can -- in addition to the use of monetary incentives -- motivate a worker by adopting leadership...