Political connections between firms and autocratic regimes are not secret and often even publicly displayed in many developing economies. We argue that tying a firm's available rent to a regime's survival acts as a credible commitment forcing entrepreneurs to support the government and to exert...

This paper analyzes the effects of tying arrangements on market competition and social welfare in two-sided markets when economic agents can engage in multi-homing; that is, they can participate in multiple platforms in order to reap maximal network benefits. The model shows that tying induces...

In this paper we explore the implication of a morbidity risk for the relationship between longevity and annuitization. We divide old-age life into two periods with uncertain survival from the end of the first to the end of the second. We show that a rise in the survival rate causes different...

This paper develops a theory of firm selection and growth and embeds it into an international trade framework of balanced growth. I assume that firm-level growth is the result of idiosyncratic productivity improvements while there is continuous arrival of new potential producers. Firms can also...

Political connections between firms and autocratic regimes are not secret and often even publicly displayed in many developing economies. We argue that tying a firm's available rent to a regime's survival acts as a credible commitment forcing entrepreneurs to support the government and to exert...

We study competition among market designers who create new trading platforms, when boundedly rational traders learn to select among them. We ask whether efficient platforms, leading to market - clearing trading outcomes, will dominate the market in the long run. If several market designers are...

We attempt to formulate and explain two types of self-fulfilling prophecy, called the Pygmalion effect (if a supervisor thinks her subordinates will succeed, they are more likely to succeed) and the Galatea effect (if a person thinks he will succeed, he is more likely to succeed). To this...

The compensation of executive board members in Germany has become a highly controversial topic since Vodafone's hostile takeover of Mannesmann in 2000 and it is again in the spotlight since the outbreak of the financial crisis of 2009. Based on unique panel data evidence of the 500 largest firms...

Using the concept of Inequity Aversion we derive in a Moral Hazard setting several results which differ from conventional contract theory. Our three key insights are: First, inequity aversion plays a crucial role in the design of optimal contracts. Second, there is a strong tendency towards...

The paper examines of the division of labor within firms. It provides an explanation of the pervasive observed changes in work organisation away from the traditional functional departments and towards multi-tasking and job rotation. Whereas the exsisting literature on the division of labour...