We develop a model with one innovating northern firm and heterogeneous southernfirms that compete in a final product market. We assume southern firms differ in their intrinsiccosts and their ability to adapt technology and study southern incentives to protect intellectualproperty rights. We find...

Our context involves Cournot oligopolists producing NM products at constant marginal costs when preferences are quasi-linear. We identify relationships between second moments of unit costs and second moments of firm-level production. For example, a larger variance in unit costs of a product...

The self-employed are substantially more satisfied with their work than employed persons. We document this relationship for 23 countries and show that the higher job satisfaction can directly be attributed to the greater autonomy that self-employed persons enjoy....

One can be independent, or subject to decisions made by others. This paper empirically tests whether individuals attach an intrinsic value to the institutional difference between independence and hierarchy ...

Stock option grants to top managers have largely contributed to the dramatic increase in US executive pay in recent years. In this paper it is argued that stock options, compared to other forms of compensation, have created strong incentives for managers to engage in lobbyingactivities for...