infonet-economy

BACKGROUND: Adolescence is a transition period from childhood to adulthood that is often characterized by emotional instability. This period is also a time of increased incidence of anxiety and depression, underscoring the importance of understanding biological substrates of behavioral and emotion regulation during adolescence. Developmental changes in the brain in concert with...

The visual system rapidly extracts information about objects from the cluttered natural environment. In 5 experiments, the authors quantified the influence of orientation and semantics on the classification speed of objects in natural scenes, particularly with regard to object-context interactions. Natural scene photographs were presented in an object-discrimination task and pattern...

This paper analyzes the choice among alternative fixed and variable cost structures under demand uncertainty. We show that the standard decision rules for the choice among cost structures under certainty continue to hold if the decision maker is risk neutral. If the decision maker is risk averse, the optimal cost structure depends on the decision model. With cost-based decision...

We study the role of peer groups in determining the structure and the total amount of executive compensation. Our analysis is based on a standard agency model in which the agent's reservation utility is related to the peer group used for performance evaluation. Our main result is that the informativeness criterion proposed by Holmström (1979) is neither a necessary nor a...

We argue that one major cause of the U.S. postwar baby boom was the increased demand for female labor during World War II. We develop a quantitativendynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous fertility and female labor-force participation decisions. We use the model to assess the long-term implications of a one-time demand shock for female labor, such as the one experienced by...

This paper applies the five modified standard criteria generally used in economics for assessing system performances to gauge the contribution of Managed Care to the performance of three health care systems, viz. Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. The maximum contribution of Managed Care to the performance of the health care system is found for the United States and the...

Rules on abuse of dominance are used to find a balance between three objectives: 1) ensuring enough competition between firms in order to force them to be efficient and to compete on merit, 2) allowing a certain degree of profitability so that companies have incentives to become more efficient, and 3) achieving an equal distribution of wealth and business opportunities among...