Search results for "microeconomics"
showing 10 items of 442 documents
Contract, Renegotiation, and Holdup: When Should Messages be Sent?
2015
I consider a setting of complete but unverifiable information in which two agents enter a contractual relationship to induce mutually beneficial investments. As my main result, I establish that the famous irrelevance of contracting paradigm, that arises due to the detrimental effect of renegotiation, is resolved if there is a fixed point in time when actions have to be chosen and one accounts for the fact that renegotiation takes time. What drives my optimality result is that, by stipulating when the mechanism is to be played, the agents ensure that renegotiation is possible ex ante but not ex post.
Essays in applied microeconomics on water resources management
2017
En el contexto actual de creciente escasez de recursos hídricos, el principal objetivo de esta tesis doctoral es contribuir a la mejora de las políticas urbanas de gestión del agua. En un sentido amplio, las conclusiones centrales derivadas de los ensayos incluidos en la misma se pueden agrupar en torno a cuatro aspectos. En concreto, implicaciones para las políticas de demanda, implicaciones para la gobernanza en la gestión urbana del agua, contribuciones metodológicas, y, finalmente, lecciones de política pública para la gestión del agua en España. Resultados sobre políticas de demanda: Como se ha desarrollado de forma más detallada en la introducción, las políticas de demanda, tanto tari…
What Drives the Microfinance Lending Rate?
2012
Is the microfinance institution (MFI) able to charge unduly high lending rates and obtain a profitability incompatible with perfect competition? We use a global panel data set of MFIs. The Panzar and Rosse revenue test in static and dynamic versions is employed, together with analyses of price (the lending rate) and return on assets. We control for microfinance specific variables such as average loan and institutional background variables, and also perform estimations in sub-samples of ownership types, regulation, and founder type. We find that the average MFI does not enjoy monopoly market power in its market, but cannot reject that perfect competition or monopolistic competition are bette…
Changes in Transport and Non Transport Costs: Local vs. Global Impacts in a Spatial Network
2007
We develop a multi-country Dixit-Stiglitz trade model and analyze how industry location and welfare respond to changes in: (i) transport frictions (e.g., infrastructure, transportation technology); and (ii) non-transport frictions (e.g., tariffs, standards and regulations). We show that changes in non-transport frictions, which are usually origin-destination specific, do not allow for any clear prediction as to changes in industry location and welfare; whereas changes in transport frictions, which are usually not origin-destination specific, may allow for such predictions. In particular, we show that reductions in transport frictions occurring at links around which the spatial network is lo…
Optimal Imperfect Commitments in a Negotiation with a Deadline
2001
One major finding of the bargaining literature is that the more irrevocable a commitment is, the better for the committed player. One notable exception is Fershtman and Seidmann (1993) bilateral negotiation where the commitment not only does not improve the committed player's payoff but also it results in inefficient delays. In this paper we relax two assumptions of the bargaining literature related to the uncertainty and irrevocability of commitments. We allow players not only to possess imperfect commitments but also to choose the degree of imperfection of their commitment. When these assumptions are incorporated in Fershtman and Seidmann (1993)'s model, we obtain that, on the one hand, t…
Strategic behavior and partial cost sharing
2003
Abstract The main objects here are games in which players mainly compete but nonetheless collaborate on some subsidiary activities. Play assumes a two-stage nature in that first-stage moves presume coordination of some subsequent tasks. Specifically, we consider instances where second-stage coordination amounts to partial cost sharing, anticipated and sustained as a core solution. Examples include regional Cournot oligopolies with joint transportation. We define and characterize equilibria, and inquire about their existence.
Commitment and strikes in wage bargaining
2000
Abstract This paper analyzes the long-run strategic relationship between a firm and a union as a repeated bargaining game, where there is incomplete information on the player's motivation on both sides and each party has a fall-back position. The firm and the union will engage in a reputation-building activity, that will produce a limited number of strikes over time. The bargainer that succeeds in building up a reputation for toughness and obtains a favorable payoff in the long-run is, either the more patient (or alternatively the more centralized), or the party with a higher initial probability of stubbornness, or the party with a smaller fall-back position. Our model also offers predictio…
Are you a good employee or simply a good guy? Influence costs and contract design
2013
We develop a principal–agent model with a moral hazard problem in which the principal has access to a hard signal (the level of output) and a soft behavioral signal (the supervision signal) about the agent's level of effort. In our model, the agent can initiate influence activities and manipulate the behavioral signal. These activities are costly for the principal as they detract the agent from the productive task. We show that the agent's ability to manipulate the behavioral signal leads to low-powered incentives and increases the cost of implementing the efficient equilibrium as a result. Interestingly, the fact that manipulation activities entail productivity losses may lead to the desig…
A Further Note on Endogenous Spillovers in a Non-tournament R&D Duopoly
2008
This note considers the paper of Poyago-Theotoky (1999) on strategic R&D with endogenous spillovers. It proves through an example that, under R&D collusion, optimality sometimes requires either minimal or asymmetric spillovers. It also provides a simple sufficient condition for optimal spillovers between colluding firms to involve maximal spillovers (i.e., complete sharing of information).
Culture at work: how culture affects workplace behaviors
2014
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to give structure to the argument that “culture matters.” Further, the aim is to show how cultural differences shape the use of incentives within firms and point toward culturally affected degrees of efficiency. Design/methodology/approach – The paper incorporates differences in the evaluation of the stimuli money, order, and monitoring into a simple efficiency wage model. Profit maximizing firms are assumed. Findings – It is found that the use of incentives should respect the cultural surrounding. Data from a real-world analysis can partly be explained with this model, which was not done before. Research limitations/implications – The major limitation…