This paper empirically explores standard-setting organizations’ policy choices. Consistent with Lerner-Tirole (2006), we find (a) a negative relationship between the extent to which an SSO is oriented to technology sponsors and the concession level required of sponsors and (b) a positive...

We examine prizes as an inducement for innovation using a novel dataset of awards for inventiveness offered by the Royal Agricultural Society of England from 1839 to 1939. At annual shows the RASE held competitive trials and awarded medals and monetary prizes (exceeding one million pounds in...

International surveys reveal wide differences between the views held in different countries concerning the causes of wealth or poverty and the extent to which people are responsible for their own fate. At the same time, social ethnographies and experiments by psychologists demonstrate...

We examine whether and how the allocation of financial transmission rights affects the behavior of electricity generators and electricity consumers with market power in the electricity market. The analysis recognizes that the ultimate allocation of rights is endogenous, depending both on whether...

Payment card associations offer both debit and credit cards and, until recently, engaged in a tie-in on the merchant side through the so-called honour-all-cards (HAC) rule. The HAC rule came under attack on the grounds that the credit and debit card markets are separate markets and that the...

We build a theory of prosocial behaviour that combines heterogeneity in individual altruism and greed with concerns for social reputation or self-respect. The presence of rewards or punishments creates doubt as to the true motive for which good deeds are performed, and this ‘overjustification...

This paper analyzes the impact of labor market competition and skill-biased technical change on the structure of compensation. The model combines multitasking and screening, embedded into a Hotelling-like framework. Competition for the most talented workers leads to an escalating reliance on...

The proliferation of new payment methods on the Internet rekindles the old and unsettled debate about merchants’ incentive and ability to differentiate price according to payment choice. This paper develops an imperfect-information framework for the analysis of platform and social regulation...

We examine whether and how the allocation of physical rights to utilize congested transmission links affects the behavior of electricity generators and electricity consumers with market power in the electricity market. The paper extends the analysis of financial transmission rights contained in...

This paper studies the interactions between an individual's self-esteem and his social environment - in the workplace, at school, and in personal relationships. Because a person generally has only imperfect knowledge of his own abilities, people who derive benefits from his performance (parent,...