This text presents a simple contracting model that captures the role of equity as a safety valve, and shows how it can solve problems posed by opportunists. It also shows that it is often preferable to limit equity, reserving it for use only against those who appear sufficiently likely to be...

Performance indicators (PIs) are widely used across the UK public sector, but they have only recently been applied to clinical care. In doing so, they challenge a previously guarded aspect of clinical autonomy--the assessment of work performance. This "challenge" is specific to a primary care...

This paper estimates a model of retail oligopoly where consumers choose between stores using consumer data which specifies the firm operating the chosen store and not the specific store (as is convenient practice for retail surveys). The location and other characteristics of the stores are...

This paper evaluates alternative strategic models of competition and market structure in online retailing, and makes comparisons with traditional retailing. Online consumers are less concerned than traditional consumers about spatial characteristics and more concerned about hidden quality...

In this first paper, I focus on the question which has been subject to considerable recent debate, namely whether collapse of North Korea is imminent. In accessing this question the paper discusses the three structural bottlenecks now thought to be severely constraining the North Korean economy...

This book critically examines the phenomenon and the consequences of the increasing inter-dependence between industry, universities and national laboratories. It explores the contrasts and similarities between the patterns of formal and informal links in a technologically dynamic industry...