The author compares the alternative game forms for situations where a buyer needs a sequence of human asset services. The hierarchy is defined as a game form in which the parties engage in once-and-for-all wage negotiation, the boss describes desired services sequentially, and either party may...

If utility (net of price) varies by consumption occasion, the consideration set of a rational consumer will represent trade-offs between decision costs and the incremental benefits of choosing from a larger set of brands. If evaluating a brand decreases bias and uncertainty in perceived utility,...

The Resource-Based View of the firm (RBV) posits as a necessary condition for diversification that a firm's resources can be leveraged beyond its original business. To achieve sufficiency we need to know whether the resource is best leveraged inside the firm or through a market contract. We...

We look at a principal-agent model in which the agent has to perform an action, the difficulty of which is better known ex interim than ex ante. We compare two contracting regimes; one with commitment to an ex ante negotiated contract, and one with an ex interim negotiated contract. The ex ante...

We use a data set describing ownership of productive assets in the carpentry trade to evaluate several factors influencing the allocation of asset ownership between an employer and his employees. The findings suggest that the allocation involves a tradeoff between two incentive effects...

This article explores the possibility that consumers use market data to make inferences about product utilities. The argument is made by means of an example based on the "compromise effect" found in extant experimental data. This phenomenon is generally looked at as a manifestation of deviations...