Economies of scope arise from synergies in the production of similar goods. The classical notion of joint production explains instances of such synergies by the fact that some factors of production are pure public inputs. We argue that this explanation applies much more generally than is usually...

We analyse the principal objectives and constraints of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), using data from a survey of 437 top managers (CEOs) of SMEs in Russia and Bulgaria. The CEOs display similar views and identify a small number of specific constraints as being the most important ones. The...

In many intermediate goods markets buyers and sellers both have market power. Contracts are usually long-term and negotiated bilaterally, codifying many elements in addition to price. We model such bilateral oligopolies as a set of simultaneous Rubinstein-Ståhl bargainings between pairs of...

This Paper presents a macroeconomic model where firms may endogenously outsource part of their production process. We start from the premise that adaptation to uncertainty cannot be contracted upon in the worker - employer relationship. Outsourcing decisions then balance flexibility gains...

This paper studies the choice of organizational forms in a multi-task principal-agent model. We compare a functional organization in which the firm is organized into functional departments such as marketing and R&D to a product-based organization in which the firm is organized into product...

The Paper gives a brief overview over the social economy in Ireland, presenting this against the background of the countries history and social structure

The paper focuses on forests management strategies for natural hazards of nonindustrial owners, in the case where the forest provides nontimber services. We introduce a basic two-period model where the private owner manages natural hazards on his forest thanks to the accumulation of savings on...

We estimate the effect of four types of education qualifications, as a proxy for human capital and skill levels, on GDP per capita, and compute the average percentage returns. We also test the effect of the product of each proxy of human capital with R&D on GDP per capita. We find that only...

We establish that domestically owned firms in two alternative models of emerging market economies, the Czech Republic and Russia, have not been converging to the technological frontier set by foreign owned firms. In both countries, the distance of domestic firms to the frontier grew (in all...

Economic development implies that the efficiency of firms in developing countries is approaching that of firms in advanced economies. We examine the extent of this convergence in the Czech Republic and Russia, economies that represent alternative models of implementing development policies,...