Nowadays, a process can be observed in Germany where electricity producing and trading firms react to the electricity market liberalisation by merging market shares, since the year 2000, which reduces the number of suppliers and influences production and consumer prices. This paper discusses...

In a recent paper, Hart and Moore (2008) introduce new behavioral assumptions that can explain long term contracts and important aspects of the employment relation. However, so far there exists no direct evidence that supports these assumptions and, in particular, Hart and Moore's notion that...

In recent years, many social scientists have claimed that trust plays an important role in economic and social transactions. Despite its proposed importance, the measurement and the definition of trust seem to be not fully settled, and the identification of the exact role of trust in economic...

In this paper, we argue that important labor market phenomena can be better understood if one takes (i) the inherent incompleteness and relational nature of most employment contracts and (ii) the existence of reference-dependent fairness concerns among a substantial share of the population into...

A monopolist is treated as a nexus of contracts with team production. It has one ownermanager. The owner-manager is the employer of two employees. A team production problem is present if the employer is a "managerial lemon". If the team production problem is solved, the employer is a "managerial...

A monopolist is treated as a nexus of contracts with team production. It has one ownermanager. The owner-manager is the employer of two employees. A team production problem is present if the employer is a "managerial lemon". If the team production problem is solved, the employer is a "managerial...

We examine the role of cooperative preferences, beliefs, and punishments to uncover potential cross-societal differences in voluntary cooperation. Using one-shot public goods experiments in four comparable subject pools from the US and the UK (two similar Western societies) and Morocco and...

We provide a framework to uncover behavioural mechanisms driving potential cross-societal differences in voluntary cooperation. We deploy our framework in one-shot public goods experiments in the US and the UK, and in Morocco and Turkey. We find that cooperation is higher in the US and UK than...

In recent years, many social scientists have claimed that trust plays an important role in economic and social transactions. Despite its proposed importance, the measurement and the definition of trust seem to be not fully settled, and the identification of the exact role of trust in economic...

Diversified firms often trade at a discount with respect to their focused counterparts. The literature has tried to explain the apparent misallocation of resources with lobbying activities or power struggles. We show that diversification can destroy value even when resources are efficiently...