This paper offers an explanation for why policy makers stick to inefficient policy decisions. I argue that repealing a policy is a bad signal to voters about the policy maker's competence if voters do not have complete knowledge about the effects of implemented policies. I derive the optimal...

This paper proposes an integrated evaluation methodology which serves to alleviate the limitations of a singleevaluation approach by combining different assessment and policy analysis methods. It is demonstrated that, in a multi-criteria context, a so-called combinatorial framework can cope with...

The strategy method is becoming an important tool in experimentalmethodology. This study examines how well this method works in anindividual decision experiment. Subjects are faced with a sequentialsearch problem. After extensive practice solving the problem andformulating strategies, they play...

In this paper we introduce flexibility as an economic concept and apply it to the firm’ssecurity issuance decision and capital structure choice. Flexibility is the ability to makedecisions that one thinks are best even when others disagree. The firm’s management valuesflexibility because it...

We develop an economic theory of “flexibility”, which we interpret as the discretion orability to make a decision that others disagree with. We show that flexibility is essentiallyan option for the decisionmaker, and can be valued as such. The value of the flexibilityoption is decreasing in...

This paper is concerned with the role of committees in collective decision-makingprocesses in a world where agents must be motivated to collect information. Committees improvethe quality of decision-making by providing information and by coordinating the collection ofinformation. We address two...

We estimate the incremental financing decision for a sample of some 150Dutch companies for the years 1984 through 1997, thereby distinguishinginternal finance and three types of external finance: bank borrowing, bondissues and share issues. First, we estimate a multinomial logit model...

Power is a core concept in the analysis and design of organisations. In this paper we consider positional power in hierarchies. One of the problems with the extant literature on positional power in hierarchies is that it is mainly restricted to the analysis of power in terms of the bare...

Most monetary policy committees decide on interest rates using a simple majority voting rule. Given the inherent heterogeneity of committee members, this voting rule is suboptimal in terms of the quality of the interest rate decision, but popular for other (political) reasons. We show that a...

Across countries, women own significantly fewer businesses than do men. We show that this is due, in large part, to the fact that the propensity to start businesses of women is significantly lower than that of men. The lower propensity of women, in turn, appears to be highly correlated to...