We consider a bilateral trading problem in which one or both parties makes relationship-specific investments before trade. Without adequate contractual protection, the prospect of later holdups discourages investment. We postulate that the parties can sign noncontingent contracts prior to...

Uncertainty appears to jump up after major shocks like the Cuban Missile crisis, the assassination of JFK, the OPEC I oil-price shock and the 9/11 terrorist attack. This paper offers a structural framework to analyze the impact of these uncertainty shocks. I build a model with a time varying...

Using a search-theoretic model where education's productive role is endogenous, we study the theoretical ramifications of separating human capital accumulation from educational investment decisions.

In this paper, I present an empirical model of learning under ambiguity in the context of clinical trials. Patients are concern with learning the treatment effect of the experimental drug, but face the ambiguity of random group assignment. A two dimensional Bayesian model of learning is proposed...

This paper addresses the question how knowledge is used to benefit the economic development of Singapore and Malaysia. Both countries have followed strict science policies to establish knowledge governance regimes for a knowledge-based economy. On the basis of empirical studies in both countries...

The principle of uncertain future: the probability of a future event contains a degree of (hidden) uncertainty. As a result, this uncertainty (in a sense, similar to vibrations, fluctuations) pushes the probability value back from the bounds to the middle of its range (from ~100% and ~0% to the...

This paper examines how the advice that lawyers provide to their clients affects the disclosure of evidence and the outcome of adjudication, and how the adjudicator should allocate the burden of proof in light of these effects. Despite lawyers' expertise in assessing the evidence, their advice...

Empirical anomalies in the dynamics of earnings following the emergence of new ICT technologies are not consistent with various re-elaborations of the human capital theory. The first part of the paper reviews critically this literature and highlights an important gap concerning the role of...

The current National Football League overtime rule favors the team starting on offense. Auctioning off or dividing-and-choosing the starting possession can potentially restore ex post fairness. We find auctions to provide a better outcome when teams have asymmetric information.

A theory is said to be fully absorbable whenever its own acceptance by all of the individuals belonging to a certain population does not question its predictive validity. This accounts for strategic equilibria and can be related to the logic underlying convergence of behaviour and intentional...