Social interaction among individuals with a preference for conformity gives rise to coordination externalities which are not internalized in a non-cooperative setting. Mandating behavioral conformity, by centrally imposing a common, group-wide action, internalizes these coordination...

Contributing to the literature on the consequences of behavioral biases for market outcomes and institutional design, we contrast producer liability and minimum quality standard regulation as alternative means of social control of product-related torts when consumers are heterogeneously...

We characterize the comparative efficiency of industry self-regulation as means of social control of torts. Unlike liability, which is imposed by courts ex post, industry self-regulation, much like government regulation, acts before the harm is done. As compared to government regulators,...

We study the problem of torts in a framework where a firm's accident adversely impacts all firms in the industry because of the presence of industry reputation effects. Industry reputation effects lead to interdependence among firms and give rise to strategic firm behavior. We characterize the...

The analysis presented in this paper shows that in countries with relatively high wages risk-averse fi rms operating in perfectly competitive markets will reduce production of commodities with high uncertainty of demand. Such commodities will be produced mainly in countries having suffi ciently...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) brings host countries capital, productive facilities, and technology transfer, as well as new jobs and management expertise. Thus, it is important to understand why in many transition countries FDI inflow is lower than expected. The goal of this study is to...

This paper examines the effects of changes in information-processing technology on the efficient organizational forms of data-processing in decision-making systems. Data-processing is modelled in the framework of the dynamic parallel processing model of associative computation with an endogenous...