Using a household production model of educational choices, we characterise a free market situation in which some agents ("high-wagers") educate their children full-time and spend a sizable amount of resources on them, while others ("low-wagers") educate them only partially. The free-market...

We analyze the voting behavior of a board of directors that has to approve (or reject) an investment proposal with uncertain return. We consider three types of directors: insiders, who are biased toward acceptance of the project, independent outsiders who want to maximize the firm's profit and...

We analyze the voting behavior of a small committee that has to approve or reject a proposal whose return is uncertain. Members have heterogenous preferences: some members want to maximize the expected value while other members have a bias toward project approval and ignore their private...

We analyse how state university competition to collect resources may a¤ect both the quality of teaching and research. By considering a set-up where two state universities behave strategically, we model their interaction with potential students as a sequential noncooperative game. We show that...

The paper analyzes the optimal delegation and ownership structure in a setting where the owner of a firm hires a manager to run the firm and to gather information on investment projects. The initial owner has two tasks: monitoring the manager and supervising project choice. Profits depend on...

We examine the second-best family policy under the assumption that both the number and the future earning capacities of the children born to a couple are random variables with probability distributions conditional on unobservable parental actions. Potential parents take their decisions without...

In an economy where graduate jobs are allocated by tournament, and some of the potential participants cannot borrow against their expected future earnings, the government can increase efficiency and ex ante equity by redistributing wealth or, if that is not possible, by borrowing wholesale and...

In an economy where graduate jobs are allocated by a matching tournament, and some of the potential participants cannot borrow against their expected future earnings, the government can increase efficiency and ex ante equity by redistributing wealth or, if that is not possible, by borrowing...

Higher education is not just a signal of innate ability. At least a certain level of educational achievement (degree level, degree mark) is strictly required to perform a graduate job. School leavers fall into two categories, the rich and the poor. Ability is distributed in the same way in both...

We examine the effects of differences in social capital on first and second best transfers to families with children, in an asymmetric information context where the number of births, and the future earning capacity of each child that is born, are random variables. The probability that a couple...