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作者：Thompson, Peter
作者单位：State University System of Florida; Florida International University
摘要：The quality of a marriage depends on the proximity of a collective action to a unknown target. Individuals receive private signals about the target, and can communicate them only imperfectly to their spouses. Because of imperfect communication, spouses may hold different beliefs about the optimal action. If a couple's beliefs diverge too widely, one or both of them may prefer to dissolve the marriage. The article explores how poor communication contributes to marital unhappiness, as well as it...
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作者：Fehr, Ernst; Kremhelmer, Susanne; Schmidt, Klaus M.
作者单位：University of Zurich; University of Munich; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut
摘要：We report on several experiments on the optimal allocation of ownership rights. The experiments confirm the property rights approach by showing that the ownership structure affects relationship-specific investments and that subjects attain the most efficient ownership allocation despite starting from different initial conditions. However, in contrast to the property rights approach, the most efficient ownership structure is joint ownership. These results cannot be explained by the self-interes...
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作者：Hoff, Karla; Stiglitz, Joseph E.
作者单位：The World Bank; Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：An earlier paper showed that an economy could be trapped in an equilibrium state in which the absence of the rule of law led to asset-stripping and the prevalence of asset-stripping led to the absence of a demand for the rule of law, highlighting a coordination failure. This article looks more carefully at the dynamics of transition from a non-rule-of-law state. The article identifies a commitment problem as the critical feature inhibiting the transition: the inability, under a rule of law, to...
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作者：Manning, Alan; Swaffield, Joanna
作者单位：University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of York - UK
摘要：In the UK the gender pay gap on entry to the labour market is approximately zero but ten years after labour market entry, there is a gender wage gap of almost 25 log points. This article explores the reason for this gender gap in early-career wage growth, considering three main hypotheses - human capital, job-shopping and 'psychological' theories. Human capital factors can explain about 11 log points, job-shopping about 1.5 log points and the psychological theories up to 4.5 log points dependi...
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作者：Beine, Michel; Docquier, Frederic; Rapoport, Hillel
作者单位：University of Luxembourg; Universite Libre de Bruxelles; Universite Catholique Louvain; Bar Ilan University; Universite de Lille
摘要：Using new data on emigration rates by education level, we examine the impact of brain drain migration on human capital formation in developing countries. We find evidence of a positive effect of skilled migration prospects on gross human capital formation in a cross-section of 127 countries. For each country of the sample we then estimate the net effect of the brain drain using counterfactual simulations. Countries combining relatively low levels of human capital and low emigration rates are s...
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作者：Lee, Jihong
作者单位：University of London; Birkbeck University London; Yonsei University
摘要：This article considers a buyer-seller contracting model in which the seller possesses private information about all relevant aspects of the state of nature, including how much each action is worth to the buyer. I argue that, given asymmetric information, the buyer may not entirely dismiss an unforeseen contingency claim by the seller. Then, if the buyer lacks the foresight/awareness to 'expect the unexpected', the model admits an equilibrium in which a seemingly complete contract is written an...
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作者：Montalvo, Jose G.; Reynal-Querol, Marta
作者单位：Pompeu Fabra University; Barcelona School of Economics
摘要：Inequality and polarisation are two different measures of heterogeneity. As in the case of inequality, the measurement of polarisation was initially developed in the context of a continuous dimension (income). However, in many important dimensions, like ethnicity, there are no available measures of distance across ethnic groups and individuals are mostly separated by the dichotomous perception 'we versus they'. In this article we analyse the theoretical properties of a measure of polarisation ...
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作者：Cervellati, Matteo; Fortunato, Piergiuseppe; Sunde, Uwe
作者单位：University of Bologna; IZA Institute Labor Economics
摘要：This article studies the endogenous evolution of economic and political institutions and the interdependencies with the process of economic development. Favourable economic institutions in the form of a state of law and absence of societal conflict arise in equilibrium. Democracies are neither necessary nor sufficient to implement a state of law, even if they may be instrumental. Efficient oligarchies can emerge and persist supported by the consensus of all groups. A taxonomy of politico-econo...
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作者：Durlauf, Steven N.; Kourtellos, Andros; Tan, Chih Ming
作者单位：University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; University of Cyprus; Tufts University
摘要：This article investigates the strength of empirical evidence for various growth theories when there is model uncertainty with respect to the correct growth model. Using model averaging methods, we find little evidence that so-called fundamental growth theories play an important role in explaining aggregate growth. In contrast, we find strong evidence for macroeconomic policy effects and a role for unexplained regional heterogeneity, as well as some evidence of parameter heterogeneity in the ag...
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作者：Maeda, Akira
作者单位：Kyoto University
摘要：This article develops a model of optimal lottery design for public financing, on the assumption that economic agents view buying lottery tickets as a form of entertainment. Given that lotteries are optimally designed, it offers two findings: (1) the fundraising potential of a lottery is independent of its type (specifically, of whether it is a fixed-prize type or a pari mutuel); and (2) the ratio of the optimal winning prize amount in each prize class to total lottery sales is equalised to the...
