This paper documents a strong positive relationship between individual reported trust levels (obtained from the US General Social Survey) and the competitiveness of the sector in which an individual works (obtained from the US census of firms). This correlation is robust to the inclusion of all...

We survey the research on the effect of employment laws in developing countries, using papers published since 2004. The survey is further supported by cross-country correlation analyses. Both exercises show that developing countries with rigid employment laws tend to have larger informal sectors...

This paper studies alternative methods of privatizing a formerly communist firm in the presence of imperfect risk markets. The methods include cash sales, a give-away scheme, and a participation contract where the government retains a sleeping fractional ownership in the firm. It is shown that...

We use enterprise data to analyse and contrast the determinants of enterprise performance in China and Russia. We find that in China, enterprise growth and efficiency is associated with rapid increases in factor inputs, but not correlated with ownership or institutional factors. However, in...

We examine vertical backward integration in oligopoly. Analysing a standard linear Cournot model, we find that for wide parameter ranges (i) some firms integrate, while others remain separated, and (ii) efficient firms are more likely to integrate vertically. Adopting a reduced-form approach, we...

A simple model of offshoring, which depicts offshoring as ‘shadow migration,’ permits straightforward derivation of necessary and sufficient conditions for the effects on wages, prices, production and trade. We show that offshoring requires modification of the four classic international...

There exist two approaches in the literature concerning the multinational firm's mode choice for foreign production between an owned subsidiary and a licensing contract. One approach considers environments where the firm is transferring primarily knowledge-based assets. An important assumption...

We develop a product market theory that explains why firms invest in general training of their workers. We consider a model where firms first decide whether to invest in general human capital, then make wage offers for each other’s trained employees and finally engage in imperfect product...

Contractual execution generates hard information, available to the contracting parties, even when contracts are secretly executed. Building on this simple observation, the paper shows that incomplete contracts can be preferred to complete contracts. This is because (i) execution of incomplete...

This paper explores a new role for venture capitalists, as knowledge intermediaries. A venture capital investor can communicate valuable knowledge to an entrepreneur, facilitating innovation. The venture capitalist can also communicate the entrepreneur's innovative knowledge to other portfolio...