Many street-level bureaucrats (such as caseworkers) have the dual task of helping some clients, while sanctioning others. We develop a model of such a street-level bureaucracy and study the implications of its personnel policy on the self-selection and allocation decisions of agents who differ...

Institutionalists commonly invoke exogenous shocks or the transposition of logics across national systems to explain institutional change and new path creation. Using organizational data on American infrastructure industries, this paper shows instead how established institutional paths contain...

This research focuses on the behavior of not-for-profit enterprises. In particular, using a familiar model of cost-reducing Ramp;D with spillovers, we examine strategic interactions between labor-managed firms in a duopoly. Research spillovers have not been previously considered in the context...

We revisit the role of liquidity risk. We successfully replicate Pastor and Stambaugh's (2003) gamma liquidity risk index and, within their time period, concur with their risk premium estimate. An out-of-their-time-period analysis finds post-time-period returns that are higher and...

There is growing interest in using distributed ledger technologies, such as blockchain, to support social assistance activities. Non-profit organisations, such as charities and philanthropic foundations, have come under closer scrutiny in the wake of highly publicised financial scandals. These...

We examine the value of price commitment in a nonprofit organization using individual level purchases over a series of concert performances. To decide on a pricing policy, the performing arts organization must be able to accurately measure when each ticket will be sold and what type of audience...

Annually, United States federal agencies issue procurement contracts worth five hundred billion dollars. Less than four percent of these were awarded to nonprofit organizations. This paper advances our understanding federal procurement practices by analyzing data from the Federal Procurement...

Setting an industry-wide standard is crucial for information and communication technologies for interoperability, compatibility and efficiency. To minimize holdup problems, patent holders are often required to ex-ante commit to licensing their technologies under Fair, Reasonable and...

This essay criticizes university efforts to patent and monetize the fruits of university research. The piece explains that university tech transfer resembles a government-subsidized game of roulette, in which the vast majority of players lose money but continue to play in hopes of hitting an...

Higher education, like any other commodity or service, has been viewed in a variety of economic frameworks. Little of this work, however, appears to have made any effort to define carefully the boundaries of the relevant market for higher education, which is the subject of this particular...