Corporate success stories often resemble a snowball. We show how initial luck in hiring talented people, the resulting technological advantage, superior corporate culture, and statusseeking by workers and by consumers can make small initial differences generate large differences over time.

Corporate success often resembles a snowball. We show how initial luck in hiring talented people, the resulting technological advantage, superior corporate culture, and status-seeking by workers can make small initial differences generate large differences over time.

Corporate success stories often resemble a snowball. We show how initial luck in hiring talented people, the resulting technological advantage, superior corporate culture, and statusseeking by workers and by consumers can make small initial differences generate large differences over time.

Corporate success often resembles a snowball. We show how initial luck in hiring talented people, the resulting technological advantage, superior corporate culture, and status-seeking by workers can make small initial differences generate large differences over time

This dissertation contains economic microanalyses of voting, regulation and higher education. It is about individual decisions, institutions, and the incentives the latter create. Three chapters of this dissertation are based on empirical results, whereas one chapter is a purely theoretical...