Intergenerational Redistribution with Short-lived Governments

We study the politics of intergenerational redistribution in an overlapping generations model with short-lived governments. The successive governments—who care about the welfare of the currently living generations and possibly about campaign contributions—are unable to pre-commit the future course of redistributive taxation. In a stationary politico-economic equilibrium, the intergenerational transfer in each period depends on the current value of the state variable and all expectations about future political outcomes are fulfilled. We find that there exist multiple stationary equilibria in many political settings. Steady-state welfare is often lower than it would be in the absence of redistributive politics.     

An Encompassing Test of Real Interest Rate Equalization*

Much confusion about the real interest rate connection amongst different countries may result from a narrow approach to analyzing the data. Using an encompassing methodology that accommodates many different types of times‐series processes, we find that real interest rates are mean‐reverting long‐memory variables. We show that cointegration methodology can often fail in this environment. Using a more general approach, we detect a limited connection between real interest rates across countries. In particular, Germany is connected with several European countries, but the US is connected only with Canada and possibly the United Kingdom.     

Producers and Predators

This paper explores a series of general-equilibrium models in which people can choose to be either producers or predators, and in which producers can allocate their resources either to production or to guarding their production against predators. The analysis shows how the ratio of predators to producers and the social cost of predation depend on the technology of predation, on the interpersonal distribution of productive resources, and in a fundamental way on whether the decision to allocate resources to guarding against predators is made individually or collectively.     

让一线管理者成为真正的领导

在那些做得最好的企业里,一线管理人员将60％～70％的时间花在工作现场．其中,有许多时间用在高质量的个人辅导上。这些企业还放权给管理人员,让他们制定决策、相机行事     

Butter and guns: Complementarity between economic and military competition

This paper analyses a general-equilibrium model of the complementarity between economic competition for the allegiance of subjects and military competition for the control of land. In our model economic competition between rival rulers for the allegiance of subjects results in their subjects, whether they are producers or soldiers, receiving incomes equal to the value of the marginal product of a producer. Furthermore, abstracting from destruction, military competition for the control of land, to the extent that it shifts some subjects from producing to soldiering, increases the value of the marginal product of a producer. Consequently, as long as military competition is not too destructive, the subjects of rival rulers have higher incomes with both military and economic competition than with economic competition alone. Economic competition for the allegiance of subjects causes rival rulers to bear all of the cost of allocating production to military competition and to bear more than the cost of the foregone production of soldiers. Received: April 1999 / Accepted: August 11, 2000     

Promoting access to intellectual property: patent pools, copyright collectives, and clearinghouses

This paper reviews and compares patent pools, intellectual property (IP) clearinghouses, and copyright collectives as systems for promoting efficient access to licensable IP in a 'market for technology'. These systems promote downstream use of innovations by economizing on search and transaction costs in licensing, as well as potentially mitigating the conditions that lead to the 'tragedy of the anti-commons' and other coordination problems in multilateral licensing. We compare and classify different systems in terms of their features, review some existing systems, and discuss their economic characteristics.     

Spawned with a silver spoon? Entrepreneurial performance and innovation in the medical device industry

Entrepreneurs in high‐technology industries often have prior experience at incumbent firms, but we know little about how knowledge obtained at the prior employer impacts entrepreneurial performance. Drawing on previous work from strategy, economics, and organizational sociology, I assess the impact of industry experience on entrepreneurial performance and innovation in medical device start‐ups. I find that spawns (ventures started by former employees of incumbent firms) perform better than other new entrants. Interestingly, my findings suggest that this superior performance is not driven by technological spillovers from parent to spawn, but rather by nontechnical knowledge related to regulatory strategy and marketing. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CEO Regulatory Foci,Environmental Dynamism,and Small Firm Performance

This research proposes and tests that regulatory foci of small business chief executive officers (promotion focus and prevention focus) relate to firm performance differentially when levels of environmental uncertainty vary. Results suggest that a promotion focus is positively related to firm performance, whereas a prevention focus is negatively related to firm performance. Further, these relationships are moderated by the degree of environmental dynamism such that in more dynamic environments, the relationship between promotion focus and firm performance is strengthened, whereas the relationship between prevention focus and firm performance is negatively affected. The reverse was found for less dynamic environments. Theoretical and practical implications as well as future research avenues are offered.