This paper documents the relation between risk attitude and college attendance. A measure of the degree of risk aversion is constructed based upon the National Longitudinal Survey for Youth. Statistics and estimation results suggest that risk aversion may have a negative impact on the decision...

This paper examines the effects of performance incentives in a federal job training program for the poor. I find that job training bureaucrats respond to incentives in ways that are consistent with a simple model of bureaucratic behavior. Additionally I am able to test whether attempts by the...

This paper studies the provision of incentives in a large U.S. training organization which is divided in about 50 independent pools of training agencies. The number and the size of the agencies within each pool vary greatly. Each pool distributes performance incentive awards to the training...

Between 1961 and 1985, the annual domestic patent application count in the U.S. varied within a narrow range of 59,000 and 72,000. Patent applications have risen dramatically in the last decade by 70 percent, reaching 124,000 in 1995. Patents granted have risen commensurately. In this paper, we...

In this paper I present a theory of the boundary of the firm that accounts for some important characteristics of real-world multidivisional firms: Operative decisions are in the hands of middle managers who are rewarded with incentive contracts based on the performance of their units; Managers'...