Output-based payments are an important tool of government policy. Sometimes governments offer "output-based aid" to subsidize services sold to households. Because output-based payments are tied to the delivery of outputs, they have an obvious advantage over input-based payments. In agreeing to...

In most countries, academic pay is independent of discipline, thus ignoring differences in labor market opportunities. Using some unique data from a comprehensive research assessment exercise undertaken in one such country -- New Zealand -- this paper examines the impact of...

Does the quality of performance by experts respond to financial incentives? I provide some new evidence on this question by examining the propensity of racehorse trainers to undertake effort-diverting actions. In a sample of 30426 horse races, I find that lower race stakes are strongly...

Racehorse trainers operate unregulated asset management businesses in which the assets owned by outside clients compete with those owned by trainers for the latter’s time, care, and attention. However, market mechanisms appear to deal effectively with the resulting agency problem in situations...

In applying the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) to cost of capital calculations, practitioners treat the market risk premium as a free parameter to be estimated from data. However, this process ignores equilibrium in the cash market and therefore the implications of the CAPM for the premium...