An impulse-control method for investment decisions in dynamic technology

This paper presents a new framework to augment standard methods in evaluating profitability of investments, especially those involved in dynamic technology. In this case there is a possibility that although a certain investment is profitable using standard methods, it should not be undertaken because it precludes a more profitable investment later on, when more advanced equipment will be available. The investment decision faced by a firm is presented here as an impulse-control problem, where the process of technological progress is modelled explicitly. The outcome of the optimization yields, in addition to investment expenditures, the expected time period between consecutive investments. A simple example demonstrates the use of the technique in actual investment decisions.     

Local human capital formation and optimal FDI

This paper lends both theoretical and empirical support to the notion of optimal foreign direct investment (FDI) levels. It does so by uncovering an inverted-U-shaped relationship between FDI and human capital formation. The optimality of a particular FDI inflow depends on the educational incentives induced by FDI on the local, heterogeneous population. Our estimates confirm the significance of a positive (linear) and a negative (non-linear) impact of FDI stocks on tertiary schooling, which are exclusively relevant in developing countries.     

Demand for cash with intra-period endogenous consumption

We extend the literature on the demand for money by relaxing the assumption of a constant rate of consumption. Although total consumption is still fixed over the period, agents can choose more than one rate of consumption and cash depletion in the period to minimize the cost of money management. Consistent with empirical evidence, we find that agents do not smooth intra-period consumption. Instead, their rate of consumption will be positively related to their cash position. This positive correlation depends on the volatility of the consumption process.     

Bifurcated Effects of Place‐of‐Origin Diversity on Individual and Team Performance: Evidence from Ten Seasons of German Soccer

How does diversity affect performance? We develop a theoretical framework in which diversity of prevention employees (protecting the organization from harm) and of promotion employees (advancing positive outcomes) have different effects on individual and organizational performance. We use data for twenty‐eight soccer teams and 1723 players that played in 6120 games during ten seasons and find that diversity of defensive (prevention) players has a positive effect on player and team performance whereas the opposite holds for offensive (promotion) players. Joint tenure of offensive players tends to amplify these effects.     

Correlated equilibria and local interactions

Summary This paper shows that Nash equilibria of a local-interaction game are equivalent to correlated equilibria of the underlying game.This work was done while George Mailath and Larry Samuelson were visiting the University of Bonn, whose hospitality is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Ken Binmore for helpful discussions. This is a revision of Section 2 of Mailath, Samuelson, and Shaked [6]. Financial support from the National Science Foundation and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Sonderforschungsbereich 303 at the University of Bonn, is gratefully acknowledged.