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作者：Fong, Yuk-Fai; Li, Jin
作者单位：Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; Northwestern University
摘要：We explore subjective performance reviews in long-term employment relationships. We show that firms benefit from separating the task of evaluating the worker from the task of paying him. The separation allows the reviewer to better manage the review process, and can, therefore, reward the worker for his good performance with not only a good review contemporaneously, but also a promise of better review in the future. Such reviews spread the reward for the worker's good performance across time a...
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作者：Braun, R. Anton; Kopecky, Karen A.; Koreshkova, Tatyana
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Atlanta; Concordia University - Canada; Universite de Montreal
摘要：All individuals face some risk of ending up old, sick, alone, and poor. Is there a role for social insurance for these risks and, if so, what is a good programme? A large literature has analysed the costs and benefits of pay-as-you-go public pensions and found that the costs exceed the benefits. This article, instead, considers means-tested social insurance (MTSI) programmes for retirees such as Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income. We find that the welfare gains from these programmes are...
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作者：Azariadis, Costas; Kaas, Leo; Wen, Yi
作者单位：Washington University (WUSTL); Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - St. Louis; University of Konstanz; Tsinghua University
摘要：In U.S. data 1981-2012, unsecured firm credit moves procyclically and tends to lead GDP, while secured firm credit is acyclical; similarly, shocks to unsecured firm credit explain a far larger fraction of output fluctuations than shocks to secured credit. In this article, we develop a tractable dynamic general equilibrium model in which unsecured firm credit arises from self-enforcing borrowing constraints, preventing an efficient capital allocation among heterogeneous firms. Unsecured credit ...
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作者：Wagner, Ulrich J.
作者单位：University of Mannheim
摘要：This article develops an empirical framework for analysing the timing of international treaties. A treaty is modelled as a dynamic game among governments that decide on participation in every period. The net benefit of treaty membership increases over time. Spillovers among members and non-members accelerate or delay treaty formation by transforming participation into a strategic complement or substitute, respectively. The predictions of the model inform the estimation of the structural parame...
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作者：Andersen, Thomas Barnebeck; Dalgaard, Carl-Johan; Selaya, Pablo
作者单位：University of Southern Denmark; University of Copenhagen
摘要：The latitude gradient in comparative development is a striking fact: as one moves away from the equator, economic activity rises. While this regularity is well known, it is not well understood. Perhaps the strongest correlate of ( absolute) latitude is the intensity of ultraviolet radiation (UV-R), which epidemiological research has shown to be a cause of a wide range of diseases. We establish that UV-R is strongly and negatively correlated with economic activity, both across and within countr...
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作者：Halac, Marina; Kartik, Navin; Liu, Qingmin
作者单位：Columbia University; University of Warwick
摘要：This paper studies a model of long-term contracting for experimentation. We consider a principal-agent relationship with adverse selection on the agent's ability, dynamic moral hazard, and private learning about project quality. We find that each of these elements plays an essential role in structuring dynamic incentives, and it is only their interaction that generally precludes efficiency. Our model permits an explicit characterization of optimal contracts.
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作者：Allain, Marie-Laure; Chambolle, Claire; Rey, Patrick
作者单位：Institut Polytechnique de Paris; Ecole Polytechnique; INRAE; Universite Paris Saclay; Universite de Toulouse; Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole; Toulouse School of Economics
摘要：While vertical integration is traditionally seen as a solution to the hold-up problem, this article highlights instead that it can generate hold-up problems-for rivals. We consider a successive duopoly where downstream firms invest and then secure support from an upstream supplier. We first show that vertical integration generates ex ante incentives to create hold-up problems: an integrated supplier is willing to pre-commit itself to appropriating or dissipating part of its customer's profits,...
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作者：Jakiela, Pamela; Ozier, Owen
作者单位：University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; The World Bank
摘要：This article measures the economic impacts of social pressure to share income with kin and neighbours in rural Kenyan villages. We conduct a lab experiment in which we randomly vary the observability of investment returns to test whether subjects reduce their income in order to keep it hidden. We find that women adopt an investment strategy that conceals the size of their initial endowment in the experiment, though that strategy reduces their expected earnings. This effect is largest among wom...
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作者：Rendahl, Pontus
作者单位：University of Cambridge; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
摘要：This article shows that equilibrium unemployment dynamics can significantly increase the efficacy of fiscal policy. In response to a shock that brings the economy into a liquidity trap, an expansion in government spending increases output and causes a fall in the unemployment rate. Since movements in unemployment are persistent, the effects of current spending prevail into the future, leading to an enduring rise in income. As an enduring rise in income boosts private demand, an increase in gov...
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作者：Fainmesser, Itay P.; Galeotti, Andrea
作者单位：Johns Hopkins University; Johns Hopkins University; University of Essex
摘要：The increase in the information that firms can collect or purchase about network effects across consumers motivates two important questions: how does a firm's pricing strategy react to detailed information on network effects? Are the availability and use of such information beneficial or detrimental to consumer surplus? We develop a model in which a monopoly sells a network good and price discriminates based on information about consumers' influence and consumers' susceptibility to influence. ...
