This paper considers the problem of hiring scientists for research and development projects when one takes explicit account of the fact that the scientist may be able to use the information acquired during the project in a rival enterprise. Management's problem is to determine an optimum labor...

Government intervention often gives rise to contests in which the possible ‘prizes’ are determined by the existing status-quo and some new public- policy proposal . In this paper we study the general class of such two-player public-policy contests and examine the effect of a change in the...

This study shows that distortion of probabilities is a possible reason for rent under-dissipation in contests with relatively small number of participants. Such distortion may also result, however, in over-dissipation of the contested rent. Focusing on contests with homogeneous contestants and...

Membership in the authors' labor-managed firm is determined in the long run by expected income maximization. In the short run, upon the realization of output price, each member may leave the labor-managed firm. However, a decision to leave when the entire membership quits is associated with...

The proposal of an inefficient policy usually stimulates a political struggle between the affected interest groups. The resulting wasteful lobbying activities may reduce welfare, even if the proposed policy is not approved. In this paper we show that sufficient asymmetry in payoffs not only...

This paper focuses on indivisible multiple-cost–single-benefit projects that must be approved by the government. A simple mechanism is proposed that ensures an efficient and fair implementation of such projects. The proposed mechanism is appropriate for a unilateral information structure: the...