Institutional Solutions to Precariousness and Inequality in Labour Markets

It has become widely assumed that the standard employment relationship (SER) is in irreversible decline in industrialized societies. However, non‐standard and precarious work relationships often complement the SER via labour market transitions, and are not displacing it as the focal point of labour market regulation. The co‐ordination and risk management functions of the SER continue to be relevant in market economies, and the SER is adjusting to new conditions. The SER has a complex and evolving relationship to gender and to social stratification. In the European context where the SER originated and achieved its clearest legal expression, institutional solutions to precariousness and inequality are being developed, the most innovative of which avoid simple deregulation in favour of integrated policy responses involving a range of complementary regulatory mechanisms.     

Inductive reasoning about unawareness

We develop a model of games with awareness that allows for differential levels of awareness. We show that, for the standard modal-logical interpretations of belief and awareness, a player cannot believe there exist propositions of which he is unaware. Nevertheless, we argue that a boundedly rational individual may regard the possibility that there exist propositions of which she is unaware as being supported by inductive reasoning, based on past experience and consideration of the limited awareness of others. In this paper, we provide a formal representation of inductive reasoning in the context of a dynamic game with differential awareness. We show that, given differential awareness over time and between players, individuals can derive inductive support for propositions expressing their own unawareness. We consider the ecological rationality of heuristics to guide decisions in problems involving differential awareness.     

The West Report as National Education Policy Making

This paper provides a critique of the West Report by comparing the scope of the report and its economic reasoning with those of previous national reports on higher education.     

Improving Incentives: Changing the Interface of Tax and Social Security

This paper proposes a scheme to improve incentives by consolidating all means tests, and discusses how this could enhance proposals for tax reform.     

责任竞争力：使可持续发展在全球市场中具有重大意义

现任世贸组织总干事拉米先生曾为“责任竞争力”下了一个定义：“责任竞争力把具有前瞻性的企业策略、创新的公共政策和充满活力的公民社会混合在一起。它涉及创建新一代的有利可图的产品和业务流程，以支持各个社团的广泛的社会、环境和经济目标为基础。”我们已经认识到，责任竞争力不仅仅是公司行为，而是上升到国家的层面。因此我们希望进一步细分各国的做法，以推进国家在经济上的竞争力。     

When Do Expert Teams Fail to Create Impactful Inventions?

We investigate the salience of expertise in creating high impact inventions and question experts’ ability to deploy novel ideas. Specifically, we examine the relationships between expertise, component originality, and a team's structural holes’ position in the collaborative network and propose that, in relative terms, expert teams create lower impact inventions if they deploy more original components and if they occupy structural holes. We test and confirm our hypotheses in a sample of semiconductor firms. In post‐hoc analyses, we find a three‐way interaction where the negative effect of structural holes almost disappears when an expert team experiments with original components whereas an increase in non‐redundancy is detrimental when teams with high expertise use familiar components. Our findings inform a foundational view of the invention process and provide novel insights into the contingent benefits of domain expertise.     

Cryptodemocracy and its institutional possibilities

The Review of Austrian Economics - Democracy is an economic problem of choice constrained by transaction costs and information costs. Society must choose between competing institutional frameworks...     

Scheduled to Gain: Short- and Longer-Run Educational Effects of Examination Scheduling*

In this paper, I present findings concerning the effect of examination scheduling on high-stakes exam scores and longer-run outcomes. I show that random variations in examination schedules, which increase the time students have to prepare, have positive effects on exam scores. The effect is highly concave, and stronger for females and in quantitative subjects. I trace the effects of preparation time into tertiary education outcomes, finding significant effects for female students on the extensive and intensive margins. I show how easily exam scores and, consequently, longer-run outcomes are affected by a random institutional factor unrelated to student ability.