This paper analyzes how private decisions and public policies are shaped by personal and societal preferences (values), material or other explicit incentives (laws) and social sanctions or rewards (norms). It first examines how honor, stigma and social norms arise from individuals’ behaviors...

An enduring puzzle is why credit rating agencies (CRAs) use a few categories to describe credit qualities lying in a continuum, even when ratings coarseness reduces welfare. We model a cheap-talk game in which a CRA assigns positive weights to the divergent goals of issuing firms and investors....

We examine whether more sophisticated accounting methods (in the form of accrual accounting) interact with other information sources to reduce information asymmetries between small business borrowers and lenders, thereby lowering borrowers׳ probability of loan denial and cost of debt. We find...

Consider agents who undertake costly effort to produce stochastic outputs observable by a principal. The principal can award a prize deterministically to the agent with the highest output, or to all of them with probabilities that are proportional to their outputs. We show that, if there is...

Self-financing has often been seen as an important source for research-and-development (R&D) funding. However, an in-depth comparison between the determinants of self-financing in the case of traditional investments versus those in R&D has not been provided yet. We use a comprehensive data set...

Increases in alliance activity between research-intensive firms and incumbents is puzzling since it is challenging to contract upon highly uncertain R&D activities. Our paper extends prior research by exploring the relationship between firm capabilities and preferences for control rights. This...

This document is the result of the Rural Territorial Dynamics Program, implemented by Rimisp in several Latin American countries in collaboration with numerous partners. The program has been supported by the International Development Research Center (IDRC, Canada). We authorize the...

This document is the result of the Rural Territorial Dynamics Program, implemented by Rimisp in several Latin American countries in collaboration with numerous partners. The program has been supported by the International Development Research Center (IDRC, Canada). We authorize the...

This document is the result of the Rural Territorial Dynamics Program, implemented by Rimisp in several Latin American countries in collaboration with numerous partners. The program has been supported by the International Development Research Center (IDRC, Canada). We authorize the...

This document is the result of the Rural Territorial Dynamics Program, implemented by Rimisp in several Latin American countries in collaboration with numerous partners. The program has been supported by the International Development Research Center (IDRC, Canada). We authorize the...