Abstract This paper presents a model that can account for the gender specialization of skill acquisition in the presence of competitive matching. In particular we show that when the comparative advantage in nonmarket domestic activities belongs to women, an incentive arises for them to...

This paper presents a model that can account for the gender specialization of skill acquisition in the presence of competitive matching. In particular we show that when the comparative advantage in nonmarket domestic activities belongs to women, an incentive arises for them to intentionally...

type="main" <p>We incorporate two sets of behavioural assumptions, fairness concerns and insatiable desire for money, into a dynamic optimization model to illuminate how they can generate persistent aggregate demand shortages. We obtain the conditions for persistent unemployment and temporary...</p>

It is widely accepted in social psychology that the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem is a fundamental human motive. We incorporate this factor into an otherwise ordinary principal–agent framework and examine its impact on the optimal incentive scheme and the agent's behavior,...

This article considers a model where the agent is uncertain about his innate ability and instead makes an inference from others' (namely, the principal's) perception, as often emphasized in the psychology literature. When the principal has superior knowledge about the agent's productivity than...