Adam Smith and the division of labour: is there a difference between organisation and market?

The paper claims that, in The Wealth of Nations, the divisionof labour refers simultaneously to two different things: a socialdivision of labour and an organisational division of labour.The central point is that the organisation of work (the organisationaldivision of labour) in the firm is the logical counterpart ofthe social division of labour, and that these reflect two inseparableaspects of the process of the division of labour. Smith is thusconcerned with organisations as well as with markets, each functioningaccording to the same principle. Hence, Smith does not believethat the organisational and the social divisions of labour arefundamentally different, although he does recognise some variationbetween them and describes different states of the divisionof labour within the firm, liberal and capitalist.     

Quality competition and entry deterrence: When to launch a second brand

We study the rationale for an incumbent to launch a second brand when facing potential entry into a market with quality‐differentiated products and a fringe producer. Depending on market size, the cost of a second brand and a potential entrant's setup cost the incumbent might use a second brand both when deterring and when accommodating entry. For low costs of brand proliferation, the high‐quality firm will prevent entry with limit qualities or multiple brands. The high‐quality incumbent will accommodate entry only if it cannot be prevented. Accommodation is always accompanied by an additional brand safeguarding the premium brand.     

Heterogeneous returns to personality: the role of occupational choice

We analyze the role of personality in occupational choice and wages using data from Germany for the years 1992 to 2009. Characterizing personality by use of seven complementary measures (Big Five personality traits, locus of control, and a measure of reciprocity), the empirical findings show that personal characteristics are important determinants of occupational choice. Associated with that, identical personality traits are differently rewarded across occupations. Hence, breaking down the analysis on the level of occupational groups provides more detailed results of returns to personality. By evaluating different personality profiles, we additionally estimate the influence of personality as a whole. The estimates establish occupation-specific patterns of significant returns to particular personality profiles. These findings underline the importance to consider the occupational distribution when analyzing returns to personality due to its heterogeneous valuation.     

Overlapping Generations or Infinitely-Lived Agents: Intergenerational Altruism and the Economics of Global Warming

Do we need an overlapping generations model for the economics of global warming? To answer this question, an infinitely-lived agent (ILA) approach and an overlapping generations (OLG) model are contrasted. ILA and OLG can be viewed as polar representations of intergenerational altruism. With ILA an immortal agent acts through his investment/savings decisions as trustee on the behalf of the future generations. With OLG, agents need not behave altruistic. They simply save during working years and dissave completely during retirement. Nevertheless, ILA and OLG must not differ in their implication for greenhouse policy. Greenhouse gas abatement is a straightforward alternative to physical capital formation and, even without altruism, each age cohort has an incentive to provide current abatement in order to reduce future damages attributable to climate change. Indeed, under reasonable assumptions and parameter values, our simulations reveal such an invariance result. Provided carbon taxes are the only policy tool and tax revenues are recycled through socially mandated rules, projections of economic growth, climate change and energy consumption are only insignificantly affected by the choice of approach.     

Zeit und Produktion

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Inferior factor in Cournot oligopoly revisited

We reconsider the recent work by Okuguchi (J Econ 101:125–131, 2010) on (possibly asymmetric) Cournotian firms with two production factors, one being inferior for each firm. It is shown there that an increase in the price of the inferior factor does raise the equilibrium industry output. In addition of providing a simpler and more rigorous proof of that result, we generalize it to the case of technologies with $s\ge 2$ factors and also allow some firms not to use the inferior one.