The gift of being chosen

We report evidence from an experiment where an employer selects one of two workers to perform a task for a fixed compensation. Workers differ in their ability. The employer’s payoff depends on the worker’s ability and on a non-contractible effort that the worker exerts once employed. We find that selected workers exert an effort higher than the minimum enforceable one. When the employers can send a free-text form message to the selected worker, workers with low ability exert significantly higher effort than the workers with high ability. The difference in effort overcompensates the difference in ability.     

Immigration and economic freedom of the US states: Does the institutional quality of immigrants' origin countries matter?

When people immigrate to the United States from countries with less economic freedom, they do not dampen economic freedom in their destination states. We use the Economic Freedom of North America report to rate the economic freedom of US states, and we group immigrants by how far below the United States their origin countries score in the Economic Freedom of the World report. Our major findings hold true even when states receive immigrants from countries with far less economic freedom. Most relationships between immigration and the US states' economic freedom scores are neither statistically nor economically significant.     

压缩级别 知难而上!

让组织变得更灵活起来，是很多CEO的大难题，问题究竟出在哪儿？往往人们回避做的事，不是认为这事不该做，而是不知道如何把事做正确。     

一个外国人眼中的《走向世界》

作为杂志的英文顾问,我要读<走向世界>每一期的很多的文章,让我最感兴趣的就是那些有关介绍我居住的地方的文字--山东远期规划的新闻,名胜古迹的描述,人们为山东做过以及正在做的贡献等等.     

Italian economic dualism and convergence clubs at regional level

This paper gives a contribution to the debate on regional convergence by comparing the long run prediction of convergence clubs introduced by Quah (1996 and 1997) with the actual observed dynamics of the Italian regions during the period 1970–2004. To this end we analyze the evolution of per capita income levels for the Italian regions using a non-traditional (non-parametric) statistical model. In addition we segment the set of economies by the mean of hierarchical clustering methodologies and compare the trajectories of the regions by introducing different notions of distance. The general conclusion is that the average distance identifies a clear division between a high performance club consisting of regions from the Center North, and a low performance club composed by regions from the South and islands. The presence of a cluster composed by Center North regions is substantially confirmed by the distance correlation analysis, suggesting an homogeneous response to external shocks. By contrast Southern regions display the same dynamical evolution but difference in co-movements. Our analysis provides hints about the fundamentals that link the regions in their process of divergence. In fact the performance clubs pattern we discovered reflects the distribution of economic activities as well as the structural attributes of the regional economies.     

Value and capital: Austrian capital theory,retrospect and Prospect

The time is right for a reexamination of Austrian capital-theory. We attempt to capture the essence of Carl Menger’s approach to capital, highlighting the important distinction between goods and the valuable services they yield (implying that goods are valuable only because they yield valuable services) and highlighting also the importance of money in facilitating exchange and production and in providing the means to value them. We look at the capital-theory of Böhm-Bawerk and suggest that, in many respects, this was a wrong turn, although it did set in motion valuable efforts to clarify the importance of the heterogeneity of productive-resources and their growing complexity over time. We examine the production-function, micro and macro, and show that it is logically untenable and useless as an instrument for empirical investigation, and that this has been known for decades. Of the Austrians after Menger, only Mises followed Irving Fisher in focusing on valuation. He did so in the context of explaining the importance of calculation. Mises’s approach to capital has been insufficiently understood and appreciated. By way of conclusion we draw from our considerations to provide a research agenda in Austrian capital theory.     

Assessing the distributive effects of minimum wage

This paper analyzes the role of Uruguay's sharp minimum wage increases after 2004 amidst the country's slight wage inequality decrease. We found that the minimum wage increase has contributed to the reduction of wage inequality for formal workers mainly. However, we also found a negative impact on employment outside the capital city, Montevideo, and observed a reduction in working hours. These results raise doubts about the effectiveness of minimum wage as a redistribution instrument in developing countries.     

The super-alertness of central banks

The Review of Austrian Economics - This paper applies Kirzner’s theory of entrepreneurial alertness to central banking. As opposed to entrepreneurs operating within the market, central banks...     

No Body to Kick,No Soul to Damn: Responsibility and Accountability for the Financial Crisis (2007–2010)

This article takes the 2008–2010 financial crisis as a case study to explore the tension between responsibility and accountability in complex crises. I analyze the patterns of attribution and assumption of responsibility of thirty-three bankers in Wall Street, interviewed from fall 2008 to summer 2010. First, I show that responsibility for complex failures cannot be easily attributed or assumed: responsibility becomes diluted within the collective. Actors can only assume collective responsibility, recognizing that they belong to an institution at fault. Second, I show that blaming is a social process that should be examined contextually, relationally, and dynamically. I build on sociological theories to depart from the normative focus of philosophers, and the cognitive focus of psychologists, who have dominated the study of responsibility so far.     

Sequential procurement auctions and their effect on investment decisions

We characterize the optimal mechanism and investment level in an environment where (i) two projects of independent costs are purchased sequentially, (ii) the buyer can commit to a two‐period mechanism, and (iii) the winner of the first project can invest in a cost‐reducing technology between auctions. We show that, in an attempt to induce more competition in the first period, the optimal mechanism gives an advantage to the first‐period winner in the second auction. As a result of this advantage, the first‐period winner invests more than the socially efficient level. Optimal advantages, therefore, create two different channels for cost minimization in buyer‐supplier relationships.