We develop a simple model of occupational choice under financial market im- perfections, in the presence of technological convexities. The aim is to analyze the quantitative effect of these imperfections on the level of income. We find that although their effect is relatively large, financial...

Some recent developments in the literature on the political economy of economic growth are considered in this paper. First, limitations of traditional cross-sectional analysis are discussed. Attention is focused on the problems of omitted variables and model uncertainty. Advantages and...

This paper analyses the data collected by two of the most significant surveys on the Open Source Software (OSS) contributors’ motivations with the aim of assessing if in the OSS products circulation we can recognise the characteristics of the modern way of giving, suggested by Godbout (2000)....

Despite the increasing consumption of new media, watching television remains the most important leisure activity worldwide. Research on audience reactions has demostrated that there are major contradictions between television consumption and the satisfaction obtained from this activity. Similar...

We characterize the optimal financial structure as a strategic de- vice to optimize the value of a firm competing in a market whose struc- ture is endogenous. Contrary to traditional results based on duopolies and depending on the form of competition, we show the general opti- mality of moderate...

The principle that it is better to let some guilty individuals be set free than to mistakenly convict an innocent person is generally shared by legal scholars, judges and lawmakers of modern societies. The paper shows why this common trait of criminal procedure is also efficient. It extends the...

We consider the regulation of a monopolistic market when the prin- cipal delegates to a regulatory agency two tasks: the supervision of the firm's unknown costs and the arrangement of a pricing mechanism. As usual, the agency may have an incentive to hide information from the principal to share...

We challenge the widely held belief that New-Keynesian models cannot predict optimal positive in‡ ations. We finnd that these are justified by the Phelps argument. This mainly happens because we also consider distortionary expects of public transfers. Our predictions are broadly consistent...