This paper examines how success-at-work, interpreted by both subjective and relative criteria, can motivate individuals to enhance their effort and utility. We employ a general specification utility function and show that the final effect of technological growth on individuals' effort and...

This paper shows that in a contest with the "Tullock" forms of contest success function, an increase in the number of contestants always reduces individual effort. However, when the outcome of the contest is governed by a noisy function of effort, then individual effort could either increase or...

This paper examines how success-at-work, interpreted by both subjective and relative criteria, can motivate individuals to enhance their effort and utility. We employ a general specification utility function and show that the final effect of technological growth on individuals’ effort and...

This paper provides a novel theory that simultaneously explains the Great Gatsby curve and the Easterlin paradox, demonstrating that these two phenomena could be driven by the same mechanism. I model positional competition, in which production opportunities are allocated according to relative...

This paper examines how success-at-work, interpreted by both subjective and relative criteria, can motivate individuals to enhance their effort and utility. We employ a general specification utility function and show that the final effect of technological growth on individuals' effort and...

This paper studies migration and rent-seeking activities in a framework of heterogeneous ability. It is shown that, despite the depletion of productive resources known as the `brain drain,' the possibility of migration could sufficiently reduce participation in rent-seeking activities and...