Following Kreps (1979), I consider a decision maker who is uncertain about her future taste. This uncertainty leaves the decision maker with a preference for flexibility. When choosing among menus containing alternatives for future choice, she weakly prefers menus with additional alternatives....

This paper formalizes ideas from classical and radical political economy on task allocation and technology adoption under capitalism. A few previous studies have attempted this, but the framework and results in this paper are different. I model labor contracts that are incomplete owing to...

We use field experiments in Niger to investigate the nature and efficiency of contractual structures in market transactions between kossai vendors and cowpea grinders (key input suppliers). Three contractual structures were employed: gift contract, standard price contract and discretionary bonus...

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. December 2009. Major: Economics. Advisor: Patrick L. Bajari. 1 computer file (PDF); vii, 98 pages, appendices A-B.

Today’s corporate environments are characterized by growing dynamics and uncertainties. Here, flexibilitygains importance as a critical success factor. This is especially true for long-term customer-supplierrelationships. As a solution to the mentioned uncertainties connected with such a...

The literature on public goods has shown that efficient outcomes are impossible if participation constraints have to be respected. This paper addresses the question whether they should be imposed. It asks under what conditions efficiency considerations justify that individuals are forced to pay...

We study how different payment modes influence the effectiveness of gift exchange as a contract enforcement device. In particular, we analyze how horizontal fairness concerns affect performance and efficiency in an environment characterized by contractual incompleteness. In our experiment, one...

The literature on public goods has shown that efficient outcomes are impossible if participation constraints have to be respected. This paper addresses the question whether they should be imposed. It asks under what conditions efficiency considerations justify that individuals are forced to pay...

Cultural and institutional differences among nations may result in differences in the ratios of marginal costs of goods in autarchy and thus be the basis of specialization and comparative advantage, as long as these differences are not eliminated by trade. We provide an evolutionary model of...