The dynamics of self-confidence are modelled in an environment where rational individuals optimally choose educations and occupations with the aim to acquire productive skills while learning about ability. It is shown how the presence of uninformative options can trap individuals below their...

We provide a model that explains the following empirical observations: i) private ownership is more efficient than public ownership, ii) privatizations are associated with increases in efficiency and iii) the increase in efficiency predates the privatization. The two key mechanisms explaining...

In this paper entrepreneurs are defined as agents who bring about economic change by combining their own effort with other factors of production in search of economic rents. The institutional setup is argued to determine both the supply and direction of entrepreneurial activity. Four key...

In their merger control, EU and the US have considered symmetric size distribution (cost structure) of firms to be a factor potentially leading to collusion. We show that forbidding mergers leading to symmetric market structures can induce mergers leading to asymmetric market structures with...

Investment liberalizing countries are often concerned that cross-border mergers & acquisitions, in contrast to greenfield investments, might have an adverse effect on domestic firms and consumers. However, given that domestic assets are sufficiently scarce, we identify a preemption effect and an...

This paper models the interaction between individuals' identity choices and redistribution. Both redistributive polices and identity choices are endogenous, and there might be multiple equilibria. The model is applied to ethnicity and social class. In an equilibrium with high taxes, the poor...

We discuss the benefits of net neutrality regulation in the context of a two-sided market model in which platforms sell Internet access services to consumers and may set fees to content and applications providers on the other side of the Internet. When access is monopolized, we find that...

We analyze an oligopoly model in which differentiated criminal organizations globally compete on criminal activities and engage in local corruption to avoid punishment. When law enforcers are sufficiently well-paid, difficult to bribe and corruption detection highly probable, we show that...

In this introductory chapter to a collective volume dealing with the political economy of entrepreneurship,* we argue, based on a suggested unifying framework, that political economy is a fruitful approach to entrepreneurship. The importance of institutions in structuring such an analysis is...