Something to prove: reputation in teams

Agents work for their own reputations when young but for their firms' when old. An individual with an established reputation cannot credibly commit to exerting effort when working alone. However, by hiring and working with juniors of uncertain reputation, seniors will have incentives to exert effort. Incentives for young agents arise from a concern for their own reputation (and the opportunity to take over the firm), whereas older agents work for the reputation of their firms (and the opportunity to sell out to juniors). Thus, the article explains the choice to work in teams. It also exemplifies how type uncertainty in reputation models may be endogenously and strategically introduced.     

Multi-product newsvendor problem with value-at-risk considerations

We consider the single period stochastic inventory (newsvendor) problem with downside risk constraints. The aim in the classical newsvendor problem is maximizing the expected profit. This formulation does not take into account the risk of earning less than a desired target profit or losing more than an acceptable level due to the randomness of demand. We utilize Value at Risk (VaR) as the risk measure in a newsvendor framework and investigate the multi-product newsvendor problem under a VaR constraint. To this end, we first derive the exact distribution function for the two-product newsvendor problem and develop an approximation method for the profit distribution of the N-product case (N>2). A mathematical programming approach is used to determine the solution of the newsvendor problem with a VaR constraint. This approach allows us to handle a wide range of cases including the correlated demand case that yields new results and insights. The accuracy of the approximation method and the effects of the system parameters on the solution are investigated numerically.     

The role of mortality in the transmission of knowledge

We investigate, both theoretically and quantitatively, a previously unexplored link between gains in adult mortality and productivity growth. Our mechanism allocates a central role to individuals as carriers of useful ideas and to personal contact as an important means of transferring these ideas. It thus implies that disrupting a human life impedes the process of knowledge transmission across time. We derive a simple and intuitive form of the dependence of aggregate knowledge transfer on adult mortality and incorporate it into a model of endogenous growth. We then quantitatively examine the relevance of the proposed link in application to the long-run growth experience of England. Our calibration exercise suggests that the reduction in adult mortality, by improving knowledge transmission across time and encouraging more innovation, was a quantitatively important force behind the takeoff in output per capita.     

Why did rich families increase their fertility? Inequality and marketization of child care

A negative relationship between income and fertility has persisted for so long that its existence is often taken for granted. One economic theory builds on this relationship and argues that rising inequality leads to greater differential fertility between rich and poor. We show that the relationship between income and fertility has flattened between 1980 and 2010 in the US, a time of increasing inequality, as high income families increased their fertility. These facts challenge the standard theory. We propose that marketization of parental time costs can explain the changing relationship between income and fertility. We show this result both theoretically and quantitatively, after disciplining the model on US data. We explore implications of changing differential fertility for aggregate human capital. Additionally, policies, such as the minimum wage, that affect the cost of marketization, have a negative effect on the fertility and labor supply of high income women. We end by discussing the insights of this theory to the economics of marital sorting.     

Investment with an arithmetic process and lags

This paper presents an explicit solution of a simple investment problem with entry lags and when the underlying stochastic process is arithmetic. It is shown that, without abandonment, the optimal investment plan is independent of the length of the lag. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

DO MINIMUM LEGAL TOBACCO PURCHASE AGE LAWS WORK?

This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of the minimum legal tobacco purchase age (MLTPA) laws on smoking behavior among young adults. Using data from the confidential version of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997 Cohort), which contains information on the exact birth date of the respondents, we find that the impact of the MLTPA on several indicators of smoking among youth is moderate but often statistically insignificant. However, for those who reported to have smoked before, we show that granting legal access to cigarettes and tobacco products at the MLTPA leads to an increase in several indicators of smoking participation, including up to a 5 percentage point increase in the probability of smoking. These results imply that policies that are designed to restrict youth access to tobacco may only be effective in reducing smoking behavior among certain groups of young adults. (JEL I10, I18, I19)     

Economic growth,exports and foreign direct investment in Least Developed Countries: A panel Granger causality analysis

This paper investigates potential Granger causality among the real GDP, real exports and inward FDI in Least Developed Countries for the period between 1970 and 2009. A new panel-data approach developed in Kónya (2006) [Kónya (2006), Exports and growth: Granger causality analysis on OECD countries with a panel data approach, Economic Modelling, 23, 978–992] which is based on SUR systems and Wald tests with country specific bootstrap critical values has been employed. The results indicate direct, one-period-ahead, unidirectional causality from exports to GDP in Haiti, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, and from GDP to exports in Angola, Chad and Zambia. Considering the FDI–Growth nexus, there is evidence of FDI Granger-causing GDP in Benin and Togo, and GDP Granger-causing FDI in Burkina Faso, Gambia, Madagascar and Malawi. While studying EXP–FDI relations, this paper finds that the causality is from FDI to real exports in Benin, Chad, Haiti, Mauritania, Niger, Togo and Yemen, and from real exports to FDI in Haiti, Madagascar, Mauritania, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal and Zambia.