This paper examines the optimal structure of hierarchies when workers differ in the range of tasks they can perform. A hierarchical system may reduce costs by allowing most tasks to be handled by unskilled workers. This may however increase delay for those tasks which must pass through several...

This paper undertakes an empirical analysis of the effects of the threat of takeover on company performance, based on a panel of 643 nonfinancial quoted UK companies over the period 1989-96. Our measure of the intensity of the threat of takeover is the predicted probability of takeover estimated...

In Bangladesh, as in many developing countries, there is a widespread belief amongst the public, policymakers and social workers that children `abandon` their families and migrate to the street because of economic poverty. This dominant narrative posits that children whose basic material needs...

Major changes in the Norwegian exchange rate have often coincided with large fluctuations in the price of crude oil. Previous empirical studies have however suggested a weak and ambiguous relation between the oil price and the exchange rate. In contrast to these studies, this paper explores the...

The role of financial institutions and corporate governance in the conduct and performance of industrial firms, especially in the area of technological innovation and international competition has been hotly debated in the recent past. The results presented here are a contribution to the...

An experiment on choices between single and compound lotteries is presented, and results are calibrated with neural network models. Many subjects tend to average out probabilities, though behaviour becomes more rational with more exposure to compound lotteries in the practice stage. The Prior...

Interconnections among financial institutions create potential channels for contagionand amplification of shocks to the financial system. Contagion occurs when a shock tothe assets of a single firm causes other firms to default through the network of obligations.We say that contagion is weak if...

Over the last decade Amartya`s Sen`s Capability Approach (CA) has emerged as the leading alternative to standard economic frameworks for thinking about poverty, inequality and human development generally. In countless articles and several books that tackle a range of economic, social and ethical...

A convergence model in which wealth accumulation is subject to i.i.d. random shocks is examined. The accumulation functions shows what k_{t+1} - wealth at t+1 - would be given k_t and with no shock. It has a positive slope, but its concavity or convexity is indeterminate. The focus is the...

Post-conflict situations face a high risk of reversion to conflict. We investigate the effect of military expenditure by the government during the first decade post-conflict on the risk of reversion. We contrast two theories as to the likely effects. In one, military spending deters conflict by...