infonet-economy

Political scientists often need to evaluate whether samples are comparable,for example, when analysing different countries or time points or when comparing data collected using different methods. A necessary condition for conducting such meaningful cross-group comparisons is the establishment of measurement invariance. One of the most frequently used procedures for establishing...

We study how startup teams are assembled in terms of team member human capital characteristics. To this end, we derive a statistically motivated benchmark for new venture team heterogeneity in terms of observed team member characteristics to generate stylized facts about team member diversity at startup and how it evolves as the new venture matures. We use the population of Danish...

We decompose broad-based measures of accruals into firm-specific and related-firm components. We find that the negative relation between accruals and future firm performance is almost entirely attributable to the firm-specific component. Standard risk-based explanations are hard to reconcile with this fact. To the extent expected returns have a common component spanning related firms...

Market liberalization of the German household electricity market has led to an excessive number of competitors (1,150 electricity providers) and volatile price dynamics on price comparison sites. To date, providers that are struggling to achieve a top ranking on price comparison sites do not appear to implement a consistent or elaborate strategy for attracting customers. We developed...

A strategy profile of a game is called robustly stochastically stable if it is stochastically stable for a given behavioral model independently of the specification of revision opportunities and tie-breaking assumptions in the dynamics. We provide a simple radius–coradius result for robust stochastic stability and examine several applications. For the logit-response dynamics, the...

We analyze intergenerational redistribution in emerging economies with the aid of an overlapping generations model with endogenous labor supply. Growth is initially high but declines over time. A version of the model calibrated to China is used to analyze the welfare effects of alternative pension reforms. Although a reform of the current system is necessary to achieve financial...

The notion of contracts as reference points provides the basis for a deeper understanding of important phenomena such as the employment contract, vertical integration, firm scope, authority and delegation. Previous experiments lend support to this notion but they ignore realistic aspects of trading relationships such as informal agreements and ex post renegotiation or revision. Here...

We study the implications of offshoring on innovation, technology, and wage inequality in a Ricardian model with directed technical change. Profit maximization determines both the extent of off-shoring and the direction of technological progress. A fall in the offshoring cost induces technical change with an ambiguous factor bias. When the initial cost of offshoring is high, an...