In this paper we analyze how a Technology Transfer Office (TTO) developing a reputation in the sale of university research may affect a scientist’s willingness to disclose ideas to the university. The TTO receives projects from academic scientists each period and then must decide whether to check the quality of each project. Checking the quality of projects and only licensing high valued projec...

We examine the effect of relationship-specific investment on the use of detailed contracts using data on transactions from a survey of Romanian firms. In those transactions, seller relationship-specific investment increases the amount of contractual detail, while buyer relationship-specific investment decreases it. We interpret these results using a hostages model applied to cash-flow and credi...

Consider a model of location choice by two sorts of agents, called “buyers”and “sellers:”In the first period agents simultaneously choose between two identical possible locations; following this, the agents at each location play some sort of game with the other agents there. Buyers prefer locations with fewer other buyers and more sellers, and sellers have the reverse preferences. We study the ...

We examine how trust is sustained in large societies with random matching, when the player to be trusted may default voluntarily or involuntarily. In order to incentivize trustworthiness, defaulters should be punished through temporarily exclusion.The difficulty is that trusting defaulters who are the verge of rehabilitation is profitable. With perfect bounded information, defaulter exclusion u...

Abstract Background Cotton is a valuable economic crop and the main significant source of natural fiber for textile industries globally. The effects drought salt stress pose challenge to strong large-scale production due ever-changing climatic conditions. However, plants have evolved number survival strategies, among them induction various stress-responsive genes such as ribosomal protein large...

The paper provides a model where authority relaionships are founded on reputation. The viability of authority is the result of subordinates’ free-riding on each other’s challenges, reducing the frequency of challenges, and making reputation worth defending. The party with authority secures subordinates’ compliance through the payment of rents to influence the extent of their failure to act coll...

We examine commonly observed forms of payment, such as milestones, royalties, or consulting contracts as ways of engaging inventors in the development of licensed inventions. We show that when milestones are feasible, royalties are not optimal unless the licensing firm is risk averse. The model also predicts the use of consulting contracts which improve the firm’s ability to monitor inventor ef...

From Team Spirit to Jealousy: The Pitfalls of Too Much Transparency Free riding in team production arises because individual effort is not perfectly observable. It seems natural to suppose that greater transparency would enhance incentives. Therefore, it is puzzling that team production often lacks transparency about individual contributions despite negligible costs for providing such informati...