Over the past century, all OECD countries have been characterized by a dramatic increase in economic conditions, life expectancy and educational attainment. This paper provides a positive theory that explains how an economy might evolve when the longevity of its citizens both influences and is...

The paper is concerned with instructions as a way of setting premises for subsequent decisions in models of teams à la Marschak-Radner, under information diversification. The paper suggests that instructions can bridge people's differences in knowledge: they do not require mutual understanding...

This paper examines which firms from a heterogeneous pool are more likely to join together and form a research joint venture (RJV). It differs from previous contributions as it introduces a set of realistic hypotheses on the characteristics of research co-operation and information sharing....

If buyers do not observe the quality of a product and production of quality is costly, market allocations can be very inefficient. Certification intermediaries are institutions that provide information about quality to buyers. The amount of information in the market determines the incentives...

Research on risk communication relates basic risk perception studies to the formulation of policies, the currently evolving legislation dealing with hazards, the key issues of public involvement, the risk and environmental management. Risk communication is a relatively new field based on a...

The important role of friends, neighbors and colleagues in shaping individual choices has been brought out in a number of studies over the years. The presence of significant 'local' influence in shaping individual behavior suggests that firms, governments and developmental agencies should...

A model of two-sided market (for credit cards) is introduced and discussed. In this model, agents can join none, one, or more than one platform (multihoming), depending on access prices and the choices made by agents on the opposite market side. Although emerging multihoming patterns are,...

In this paper we explain the apparent ''diversification discount'' of conglomerates without assuming inefficient-cross subsidisation through internal capital markets. Instead we assume that an internal capital market efficiently redistributes scare resources across a conglomerate's divisions...

Marshallian districts are locales that accommodate a large number of small firms producing similar goods to be exported and benefit from the accumulation of know-how associated with workers residing there. We study the making of such districts by assuming that the cost function of a firm is a...

Empirical surveys find no significant impact of environmental regulation and environmental costs on international competitiveness. In the literature, we can find three hypotheses on the impact of environmental regulation. For the industrial-flight and pollution-haven hypothesis, there is no...