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Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Economic Theory
The Efficiency Of U.S. Public Space Utilization During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Seth G. Benzell, Avinash Collis, Christos Nicolaides
The Efficiency Of U.S. Public Space Utilization During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Seth G. Benzell, Avinash Collis, Christos Nicolaides
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
The COVID-19 pandemic has called for and generated massive novel government regulations to increase social distancing for the purpose of reducing disease transmission. A number of studies have attempted to guide and measure the effectiveness of these policies, but there has been less focus on the overall efficiency of these policies. Efficient social distancing requires implementing stricter restrictions during periods of high viral prevalence and rationing social contact to disproportionately preserve gatherings that produce a good ratio of benefits to transmission risk. To evaluate whether U.S. social distancing policy actually produced an efficient social distancing regime, we tracked consumer preferences …
Firing Threats: Incentive Effects And Impression Management, Brice Corgnet, Roberto Hérnan-Gonzalez, Stephen J. Rassenti
Firing Threats: Incentive Effects And Impression Management, Brice Corgnet, Roberto Hérnan-Gonzalez, Stephen J. Rassenti
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
We study the effect of firing threats in a virtual workplace that reproduces features of existing organizations. We show that organizations in which bosses can fire up to one third of their workforce produce twice as much as organizations for which firing is not possible. Firing threats sharply decrease on-the-job leisure. Nevertheless, organizations endowed with firing threats underperformed those using individual incentives. In the presence of firing threats, employees engage in impression management activities to be seen as hard-working individuals in line with our model. Finally, production levels dropped substantially when the threat of being fired was removed, whereas on-the-job …
A Dynamic Model Of Competitive Entry Response, Matthew Selove
A Dynamic Model Of Competitive Entry Response, Matthew Selove
Business Faculty Articles and Research
I develop a dynamic investment game with a “memoryless” research and development process in which an incumbent and an entrant can invest in a new technology, and the entrant can also invest in the old technology. I show that an increase in the probability of successfully implementing a technology can cause the incumbent to reduce its investment. Under certain conditions, if the success probability is high, the incumbent allows the entrant to win the new technology so that firms reach an equilibrium in which they use different technologies, and threats of retaliation prevent attacks; but if the success probability is …
How Do Firms Become Different? A Dynamic Model, Matthew Selove
How Do Firms Become Different? A Dynamic Model, Matthew Selove
Business Faculty Articles and Research
This paper presents a dynamic investment game in which firms that are initially identical develop assets that are specialized to different market segments. The model assumes that there are increasing returns to investment in a segment, for example, as a result of word-of-mouth or learning curve effects. I derive three key results: (1) Under certain conditions there is a unique equilibrium in which firms that are only slightly different focus all of their investment in different segments, causing small random differences to expand into large permanent differences. (2) If, on the other hand, sufficiently large random shocks are possible, firms …
Capital Structure And Product-Market Rivalry: How Do We Reconcile Theory And Evidence?, Dan Kovenock, Gordon Phillips
Capital Structure And Product-Market Rivalry: How Do We Reconcile Theory And Evidence?, Dan Kovenock, Gordon Phillips
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
This paper presents empirical evidence on the interaction of capital structure decisions and product market behavior. We examine when firms recapitalize and increase the proportion of debt in their capital structure. The evidence in this paper shows that firms with low productivity plants in highly concentrated industries are more likely to recapitalize and increase debt financing. This finding suggests that debt plays a role in highly concentrated industries where agency costs are not significantly reduced by product market competition. Following the empirical evidence we introduce the "strategic investment" effects of debt and argue that this effect, in conjunction with agency …
Price Determination In A Competitive Industry With Costly Information And A Production Lag, Reuven Glick, Clas Wihlborg
Price Determination In A Competitive Industry With Costly Information And A Production Lag, Reuven Glick, Clas Wihlborg
Business Faculty Articles and Research
We analyze the role of information for price and output adjustment when competitive firms with rational expectations cannot directly distinguish between industrywide and firm-specific cost disturbances. Firms may become informed about industrywide cost conditions by acquiring information at a cost. The sensitivity of price and output to cost disturbances decreases as more firms choose to purchase information. The equilibrium industry share of informed firms increases as the cost of information falls and total cost variability increases. The equilibrium share of informed firms is largest when there is a comparable degree of variability in both industrywide and firm-specific costs.