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作者：Lee, Frances Z. Xu; Bernhardt, Dan
作者单位：Loyola University Chicago; University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
摘要：We characterize how the process of publicly gathering information via discovery affects strategic interactions between litigants. It allows privately informed defendants to signal through the timing of settlement offers, with weaker ones attempting to settle prediscovery. Discovery reduces the probability of trial. Properly designed limited discovery reduces expected litigation costs. Stronger defendants gain more (lose less) from a given amount of discovery. We find that the court should gran...
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作者：De Fraja, Gianni
作者单位：University of Nottingham; University of Rome Tor Vergata; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
摘要：This article studies how a government should distribute funds among research institutions and how it should allocate them to basic and applied research. Institutions differ in reputation and efficiency and have an information advantage. The government should award funding for basic research to induce the most productive institutions to carry out more applied research than they would like. Institutions with better reputation a do more research than otherwise identical ones, and applied research...
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作者：Ekinci, Emre
作者单位：Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
摘要：This article develops a career-concerns model to examine the screening function of employee referrals. First, I show that employees' reputational concerns provide them with an incentive to refer high-ability applicants. This result explains how firms that offer fixed payments, rather than bonuses contingent on the referral's posthire performance, can elicit high-ability referrals from their employees. Second, I consider the promotion competition as a potential mechanism that creates a conflict...
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作者：Rosato, Antonio
作者单位：University of Technology Sydney
摘要：This article derives the optimal pricing and product-availability strategies for a retailer selling two substitute goods to loss-averse consumers and shows that limited-availability sales manipulate consumers into an ex ante unfavorable purchase. The seller maximizes profits by raising the consumers' reference point through a tempting discount on a good available only in limited supply (the bargain), and cashing in with a high price on the other (the rip-off), which consumers buy if the bargai...
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作者：Okat, Deniz
作者单位：Aalto University
摘要：Individuals being audited potentially learn how to exploit the weaknesses inherent in any audit methodology if they face the same method many times. Hence, an auditor better deters fraud by randomizing her choice of methodology over time, thereby frustrating a would-be fraudster's ability to learn. In the extreme, an auditor benefits from refusing to audit, even though audits are costless to her.
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作者：Berry, Steven; Eizenberg, Alon; Waldfogel, Joel
作者单位：Yale University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities
摘要：A vast theoretical literature explores inefficient market structures in free-entry equilibria, and previous empirical work demonstrated that excessive entry may obtain in local radio markets. We extend that literature by relaxing the assumption that stations are symmetric, allowing for endogenous horizontal and (unobserved) vertical station differentiation. We find that, in most broadcasting formats, a social planner who takes into account the welfare of market participants eliminates 50%-60% ...
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作者：Boone, Jan; Schottmuller, Christoph
作者单位：Tilburg University; Tilburg University; Tilburg University; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); University of Copenhagen
摘要：We analyze optimal procurement mechanisms when firms are specialized. The procurement agency has incomplete information concerning the firms' cost functions and values high quality as well as low price. Lower type firms are cheaper (more expensive) than higher type firms when providing low (high) quality. With specialized firms, distortion is limited and a mass of types earns zero profits. The optimal mechanism can be inefficient: types providing lower second-best welfare win against types pro...
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作者：Chone, Philippe; Linnemer, Laurent
摘要：Dominant firms often are unavoidable trading partners. Buyers may consider switching a fraction of their requirements to rival products, but that fraction is highly uncertain in rapidly evolving industries. Nonlinear pricing serves to adjust the competitive pressure placed on rival firms, depending on the joint distribution of the buyer willingness to pay for the rival's good and the share of contestable demand. Concave price-quantity schedules erect barriers to entry. Convex parts in schedule...
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作者：Pozzi, Andrea; Schivardi, Fabiano
作者单位：Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); Bocconi University; Bocconi University
摘要：We disentangle the contribution of unobserved heterogeneity in demand and productivity to firm growth using Italian data containing unique information on firm-level prices. Demand and total factor productivity (TFP) shocks are equally important in shaping firm growth. However, the pass-through of shocks to growth is highly incomplete, more so for productivity shocks. We argue that incompleteness and asymmetry of the pass-through can be explained by frictions that, unlike those studied by the l...
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作者：Aguirregabiria, Victor; Clark, Robert; Wang, Hui
作者单位：University of Toronto; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); Universite de Montreal; HEC Montreal; Peking University
摘要：The 1994 Riegle-Neal Act (RN) removed restrictions on branch-network expansion for banks in the United States. An important motivation was to facilitate geographic risk diversification (GRD). Using a factor model to measure banks' geographic risk, we show that RN expanded GRD possibilities in small states, but only some large banks took advantage. Using our measure of geographic risk and an empirical model of branch-network choice, we identify preferences toward GRD separately from other facto...
