[enter Abstract Body]Previous research in management accounting and economics has noted the potential for complementarities between the firm’s performance measurement system and its other organizational design choices. We add to this literature by studying how the informativeness and incentive...

At the heart of decentralization lies the notion that tasks are delegated by owners to managers who possess superior local information. The extent of this information asymmetry is often an endogenous construct, as it is influenced by the owner’s choice of internal accounting systems and the...

We examine the effects of biased (conservative or liberal) reporting on product market competition. Cournot duopolists observe either firm-specific or industry-wide shocks and provide noisy reports subject to an exogenous mandated bias attributed to public policy. Given neutral prior beliefs,...

Manufacturers have recently begun outsourcing product assembly and completion tasks to their suppliers. Such outsourcing solves several contracting problems, but generates new incentive frictions between manufacturers and their suppliers. In this paper, we analyze a manufacturer's decision to...

This paper shows that major components of modern manufacturing processes, such as inventory management and cross-training, play a significant control role. In our model, workers possess information that is critical to efficient ongoing operations. An organizational design that motivates workers...

This paper investigates optimal tax policy when economic conditions are uncertain, creating risk in tax revenues. Optimal taxation with uncertainty balances costs from volatility and deadweight loss. Tax policy affects volatility through two channels; spreading risk between public and private...

Despite the large impact institutions have on the allocation of population, it remains an open question which institutions produce an efficient allocation of people across cities. Due to agglomeration, differences in amenities, and congestion, cities experience decreasing returns to population...

Rushes are a fundamental characteristic of the growth of many industries and cities. To explain these rushes, and better understand the mechanisms of growth, this paper develops a model centered on a new tradeoff between fundamentals and opportunities. Early growth in industries and cities...

The conventional wisdom is that market forces cause cities to be inefficiently large, and public policy should limit city sizes. The foundation for this argument is based on the unrealistic assumptions that city sites are homogeneous, federal taxes are absent, and individuals get free land to...