An influential thesis [Kuran, 2011, The Long Divergence] locates the economic failure of the Middle East in Islamic legal arrangements that laid the basis for organizational deficiencies.  This article critically scrutinizes this thesis using the lens of political economy and argues that...

This paper develops a theory of outside ownership where such an ownership arrangement mitigates an external finance problem. Part of the gains from outside ownership accrue to asset owners which determines the asset value. The theory provides a context to analyze asset ownership and asset values...

Trade and growth theories predict a mutual causation of innovation and exports. We test empirically whether innovation causes exports using a uniquely rich German micro dataset. To overcome the potential endogeneity, we need to identify variations in innovations that are exogenous to export...

Traditionally, the scholarly journal market operates so that research institutions are charged high prices and the wider public is often excluded altogether, while authors can usually publish for free and commercial publishers enjoy high profits.  Two forms of open access regulation can...

We develop a framework in which: (i) a firm can have a new product tested publicly before launch; and (ii) tests vary in toughness, holding expertise fixed.  Price flexibility boosts the strong positive impact on consumer beliefs of passing a tough test and mitigates the strong negative impact...

We show that introducing an external capital market with information asymmetry into a product market model reduces opportunistic substitution of sub-standard goods and encourages producers to concentrate on long-run reputation building.  We test this result with a laboratory experiment.  We...

This paper evaluates alternative strategic models of competition and market structure in online retailing, and makes comparisons with traditional retailing. Online consumers are less concerned than traditional consumers about spatial characteristics and more concerned about hidden quality...

Herding arises when an agents private information is swamped by public information in what Jackson and Kalai (1997) call a recurring game. The agent will fail to reveal his own information and will follow the actions of his predecessor and, as a result, useful information is lost, which might...

Ultimatum games have been extensively used in experimental studies. By studying the consequences that restrictions shared by ultimatum games have in subject`s behaviour, this paper argues that some results are falsified by design constraints. This paper also presets a taxonomy of certification,...

We examine some of the factors that might influence the quality of information produced in discussion groups on the internet, such as USENET and the WELL. In particular, we look at the impact of various different pricing structures, and compare regimes in which anonymity is enforced with regimes...