interrupted work careers depreciation and restoration of human capital the quantitative effects and even the existence of a human capital depreciation phenomenon have been a subject of controversy in the recent literature prior work however was largely cross sectional and the longitudinal dimension if any was retrospective using longitudinal panel data on married women in nls we have now established that real wages at reentry are indeed lower than at the point of labor force withdrawal and the decline in wages is greater the longer the interruption another striking finding is a relatively rapid growth in wages after the return to work this rapid growth appears to reflect the restoration or repair of previously eroded human capital the phenomenon of depreciation and restoration is also visible in data for immigrants to the united states however while immigrants eventually catch up with and often surpass natives returnees from the nonmarket do not fully restore their earnings potential

panel estimates of male female earnings functions this paper applies single and simultaneous equation fixed effects fe and random effects re panel data estimation techniques to obtain male and female earnings function parameters using the panel study of income dynamics psid the paperfinds that earnings appreciation with experience and depreciation with labor market intermittency are comparable for men and women further skill atrophy rates increase not decrease once one controls for heterogeneity and endogeneity finally the unexplained male female wage differential declines from 40 percent to 20 percent when one adjusts for heterogeneity adjusting for endogeneity depends very much on the choice of instruments however when adjusting for endogeneity the gender earnings gap falls and approaches zero percent these results hold for two separate subsamples so that the estimates appear robust independent of sample selectivity

the productivity of working hours observations on munition workers most of them women are organised to examine the relationship between their output and their working hours the relationship is non linear below an hour s threshold output is proportional to hours above a threshold output rises at a decreasing rate as hours increase implications of this finding for the estimation of labour supply functions are considered the findings also link up with the current research on the effects of long working hours on accidents and injuries

rent seeking in general equilibrium a didactic illustration in the first part of the paper a simple general equilibrium model is developed which allows a graphic illustration of some of the basic ideas in rent seeking literature general equilibrium means that the alternative uses of available resources for both consumers and producers are made explicit the standard partial analysis of rent seeking is re interpreted in a general welfare theoretic framework thereby clarifying such diverse terms as consumer and producer surplus profits and rents to be captured the initial models of tullock and krueger are used to describe the social harm done by rent seeking activities in terms of a social cost benefit calculus

from the crowd to the market the role of reward based crowdfunding performance in attracting professional investors abstract we focus on new technology based entrepreneurial ventures engaging in reward based crowdfunding and examine the effect of their performance in such funding channel on the likelihood of securing subsequent funding from professional investors we also study how this effect is influenced by the presence of patents granted for the new product idea and the entrepreneur social capital results from a sample of technology projects launched on kickstarter demonstrate that pledging a higher amount of money in crowdfunding can ignite professional investors interest and thus help secure subsequent funding however this positive evidence is effective only when complemented by the presence of patents or a large network of social ties

a longitudinal analysis of white women s wages according to human capital theory women s work participation decisions will strongly affect their wages and wage growth we test human capital predictions about how labor force withdrawals both past and prospective part time work experience and working in male rather than in female jobs affect wages and wage growth for white women we do this by estimating a wage change model for the years 1967 1979 for a national sample of white women we find that wages drop immediately following withdrawals but that this is followed by a rapid wage growth so that the net loss in wages from dropping out of the labor force is small we further find that wage growth is not significantly lower in female than in male jobs but that part time work experience does not lead to significant wage growth in either male or female jobs

the career costs of children this paper analyzes the life cycle career costs associated with child rearing and decomposes their eects into unearned wages as women drop out of the labor market loss of human capital and selection into more child friendly occupations we estimate a dynamic life cycle model of fertility occupational choice and labor supply using detailed survey and administrative data for germany for numerous birth cohorts across dierent regions we use this model to analyze both the male female wage gap as it evolves from labor market entry onward and the eect of pro fertility policies we show that a substantial portion of the gender wage gap is explainable by realized and expected fertility and that the long run eect of policies encouraging fertility are considerably lower than the short run eects typically estimated in the literature

innovation appropriability and the underpricing of initial public offerings using the information asymmetries theory of underpricing we investigate the role of innovation in the underpricing of initial public offerings ipos we develop and test a model in which patents reduce information asymmetries in industries where the link between patents and inventive returns is transparent thereby reducing underpricing conversely patents reflect increased information asymmetries and underpricing in industries where the link is not transparent we examine these relationships in a sample of 1 413 ipos and find strong support for our hypotheses in so doing we make an important theoretical contribution by showing that the ipo market contextualizes firm information abstract from author copyright of academy of management journal is the property of academy of management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder s express written permission however users may print download or email articles for individual use this abstract may be abridged no warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract copyright applies to all abstracts

repeated contests a general parameterization abstract contests often involve players vying for the same prize year after year this paper characterizes equilibrium effort both individual and aggregate in a general parameterization of such repeated contests

following the crowd leisure complementarities beyond the household leisure externalities across households have important implications for labor market regulations but have proven very difficult to identify this paper exploits the unique features of school holidays and paid leave regulations in france to show that exogenous increases in the amount of leisure time enjoyed by workers living with children induce very significant increases in the demand for leisure of workers living in other households we also provide evidence that these cross effects are driven by complementarities in nonmarket time rather than workplace norms or workplace externalities

dynamic rent seeking games the present paper analyses rent seeking games in which competitors for a rent can act and react finitely or infinitely often it argues for an infinite move model as the most appropriate specification of a model of rent seeking dynamic equilibrium analysis of this game suggests that wasteful expenditures in rent seeking competitions are lower than previously studied static simultaneous move games predict journal of economic literature classification numbers d72 c73

carbon capture and storage and transboundary pollution a differential game approach abstract we study the strategic behavior of two countries facing transboundary co2 pollution under a differential game setting in our model the reduction of co2 concentration occurs through the carbon capture and storage process rather than through the adoption of cleaner technologies furthermore we first provide the explicit short run dynamics for this dynamic game with symmetric open loop and a special markovian nash strategy then we compare these strategies at the games steady states and along some balanced growth paths our results show that if the initial level of co2 is relatively high state dependent emissions reductions can lead to higher overall environmental quality hence feedback strategy leads to less social waste

dynamic rent seeking abstract a dynamic model of the political process is presented under conditions of uncertainty as in an earlier model by becker several interest groups vie for political influence exerted in the form of taxes and subsidies some results of the static single interest group theory of rent seeking are given slightly modified interpretations among other things it is shown that a group s rent seeking activity is negatively related to the rate of growth of national income to the group s relative position in the income distribution and to measures of how deserving it is the importance of voting is modelled explicitly it is also found that policies tend to be adopted which minimize the deadweight welfare losses from rent seeking

endogenous strength in conflicts in this paper we study a two period contest where the strength of players in the second period depends on the result of the contest in the first stage we show that in contrast to one shot contests in the same setting heterogeneous players exert different efforts in the first stage and rent dissipation in the first period may be large we study the conditions under which the discouragement effect holds in addition new issues emerge like the evolution of the strengths and the shares of the prize during the game

how patenting informs vc investors the case of biotechnology in the presence of asymmetric information economic agents need to communicate their quality to investors and other parties this paper investigates how information generated during the patenting process affects the ability of new ventures to attract vc financing while much of the literature on information asymmetries focuses on patent applications we argue that the entire examination process should be considered including information that emerges in the course of patent examination and review we test several hypotheses using a sample of british and german companies that seek venture capital we find that the filing of patent applications is positively related to vc financing moreover the examination process at the patent office generates valuable technological and commercial information via search reports citations and opposition procedures which affect the likelihood of vc financing our results suggest that the patenting process supports investors in updating their expectations regarding the quality of new ventures

working hours and productivity in swedish manufacturing the magnitude of the elasticity of output with regard to working hours is an important factor in the debate on working time despite some attempts at its estimation little is known about this elasticity and empirical studies have yielded contradictory results feldstein 1967 craine 1973 and leslie 1984 obtain an output elasticity with respect to working hours considerably above one which implies that shorter working hours reduce productivity on the other hand elasticities below one are reported in studies by malinvaud 1973 tatom 1980 leslie and wise 1980 hart and macgregor 1984 and aberg 1985 suggesting that shorter working hours increase labor productivity part of this discrepancy naturally reflects differences between the economies and sectors studied types of data and the methods applied the main objective of this study is to analyze the sensitivity of the magnitude of the elasticity of output with respect to working hours to different production function specifications along the lines suggested by hart and macgregor 1984

entry and patenting in the software industry to what extent are firms kept out of a market by patents covering related technologies do patents held by potential entrants make it easier to enter markets we estimate the empirical relationship between market entry and patents for 27 narrowly defined categories of software products during the period 1990 2004 controlling for demand market structure average patent quality and other factors we find that a 10 increase in the number of patents relevant to market reduces the rate of entry by 3 8 and this relationship intensified following expansions in the patentability of software in the mid 1990s however potential entrants with patent applications relevant to a market are more likely to enter it finally patents appear to substitute for complementary assets in the entry process because patents have both greater entry deterring and entry promoting effects for firms without prior experience in other markets this paper was accepted by bruno cassiman business strategy

trends in structural productivity levels in the major industrialized countries abstract estimating returns to hours worked and the employment rate provides us with an original interpretation of changes in us productivity and other industrialized countries catch up with us productivity levels over recent decades

part time work wages and productivity evidence from belgian matched panel data the authors use matched employer employee panel data on belgian private sector firms to estimate the relationship between wage productivity differentials and the firm s labor composition in terms of part time work and gender findings suggest that the groups of women and part timers generate employer rents but also that the origin of these rents differs relatively lower wages for women relatively higher productivity for part timers interactions between gender and part time work suggest that the positive productivity effect is driven by male part timers working more than 25 hours whereas the share of female part timers is associated with wage penalties the authors conclude that men and women differ with respect to motives for reducing working hours and the types of part time jobs available to them women often have to accommodate domestic constraints by downgrading to more flexible jobs whereas male part time work is frequently related to training and collectively negotiated reductions in hours that

on perfect rent dissipation if economists are united on anything it is the proposition that monopoly prices reduce economic welfare by preventing the realization of the maximum gains from trade in any market the extent of such distortions to efficiency are often called harberger costs after arnold harberger s 1954 provocative attempt to measure the extent of these losses in the u s economy more recent analysis has revealed that when monopoly power is achieved via regulation at least part of the monopoly rents so gained will not be simple transfers from consumers to producers but will be dissipated by producers rent seeking activity since such activity employs real resources there are additional costs to monopolization beyond the harberger costs as emphasized by gordon tullock 1967 and richard posner 1975 indeed posner and others have argued that if competition for the monopoly rents is perfect all of the expected rents from regulation will be converted to welfare losses while franklin fisher s 1985 comment has qualified this conclusion somewhat the upshot of the debate is that the rent seeking or tullock costs may greatly exceed the harberger costs 1 another recent strand of the analysis concerns the time pattern over which monopoly returns are dissipated by competition to gain and hold the monopoly right robert mccormick et al 1984 emphasize that to the extent such expenditures are sunk they are forever lost and not recoverable by deregulation while conceding the point martin cherkes et al 1986 argue that most rentseeking expenditures are recurring not sunk and therefore large gains from deregulation remain the purpose of this essay is to point out that recurring or sunk even the largest specification of the harberger and tullock costs of regulatory monopolization may fall far short of the actual welfare costs this is because the analysis concentrates on the rent seeking tullock costs and largely ignores the parallel rent defending2 tullock costs a proper assessment of such rent defending tullock costs might more than double the maximum welfare costs of regulation suggested by posner

investment under uncertainty in dynamic conflicts this paper analyses a model in which two groups repeatedly compete with each other for a prize in every time period we assume that there is a status quo bias if there is a fight today yesterday s winner is in a stronger position than the other group hence a change of the status quo has long term consequences that groups need to take into account important applications of this model include lobbying for legislation and political transitions through revolutions we analyse the strategic timing of attacks on the status quo which is similar to investment decisions under uncertainty we find that the attack threshold is considerably lower than in a comparable one period game and that the expenditure level necessary to change the status quo is low in comparison to the prize this provides a possible solution to tullock s rent seeking paradox in lobbying copyright 2006 wiley blackwell

the patent paradox revisited an empirical study of patenting in the u s semiconductor industry 1979 1995 we examine the patenting behavior of firms in an industry characterized by rapid technological change and cumulative innovation recent survey evidence suggests that semiconductor firms do not rely heavily on patents to appropriate returns to r d yet the propensity of semiconductor firms to patent has risen dramatically since the mid1980s we explore this apparent paradox by conducting interviews with industry representatives and analyzing the patenting behavior of 95 u s semiconductor firms during 1979 1995 the results suggest that the 1980s strengthening of u s patent rights spawned patent portfolio races among capital intensive firms but it also facilitated entry by specialized design firms

capacity investment preemption and commitment in an infinite horizon model the commitment value of capacity is analyzed in an infinite horizon duopoly model the paper focuses on the role of alternative behavioral assumptions about the ability of firms to commit to investment paths each firm s investment strategy in a feedback nash equilibrium is shown to be a decreasing function of its rival s current capacity this creates an incentive for a firm to expand its capacity to preempt subsequent rival investment in a precommitment equilibrium there are no incentives to invest preemptively as a consequence steady state capacity levels are greater in a feedback nash equilibrium than in a precommitment equilibrium copyright 1987 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

overconfidence and excess entry an experimental approach psychological studies show that most people are overconfident about their own relative abilities and unreasonably optimistic about their futures e g shelly e taylor and j d brown 1988 neil d weinstein 1980 when assessing their position in a distribution of peers on almost any positive trait like driving ability ola svenson 1981 income prospects or longevity a vast majority of people say they are above the average although of course only half can be if the trait is symmetrically distributed this paper explores whether optimistic biases could plausibly and predictably influence economic behavior in one particular setting entry into competitive games or markets many empirical studies show that most new businesses fail within a few years for example using plant level data from the u s census of manufacturers spanning 1963 1982 timothy dunne et al 1988 estimated that 61 5 percent of all entrants exited within five years and 79 6 percent exited within 10 years most of these exits are failures see also dunne et al 1989a 1989b d shapiro and r s khemani 1987

the social cost of rent seeking first estimates omists have been unanimous in their verdict that rent seeking is socially wasteful if rational from the practitioner s perspective 1 the entire literature on rent seeking that has developed over the past twenty years has focused on a describing the process of rent seeking b describing the theoretical consequences of rent seeking and c applying the theory to examination of political behavior and political outcomes to our knowledge there have been no attempts to empirically verify quantify the alleged social waste due to rentseeking the purpose of this paper is to report our first stab efforts in this regard we make no pretense of advancing the theory of rent seeking the investigation is an empirical search for a phillips curve type of relationship between incidence of rent seeking in the u s economy and the size growth of that economy our findings based on both time series and cross sectional analysis of the u s economy verify the existence of a social cost to rentseeking our crude estimate of the impact of rent seeking suggests that rentseeking as we measure it cost the economy an additional 22 6 percent of measured gnp in 1985

a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence this paper presents a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence political equilibrium depends on the efficiency of each group in producing pressure the effect of additional pressure on their influence the number of persons in different groups and the deadweight cost of taxes and subsidies an increase in deadweight costs discourages pressure by subsidized groups and encourages pressure by taxpayers this analysis unifies the view that governments correct market failures with the view that they favor the politically powerful both are produced by the competition for political favors

patents as signals for startup financing patents as signals for startup financing we examine the role of patents as signals used to reduce information asymmetries in entrepreneurial finance a theoretical model gives conditions for a unique separating equilibrium in which startup founders file for patents to signal invention quality to investors as well as appropriating value the theory allows for heterogeneous investors and examine the optimal match of different types of startups as defined by the quality of their technology to investors who differ in the amount of non financial capital they provide the empirical analysis is consistent with the model s predictions using a novel dataset of israeli startups that received external funding during the period 1994 2011

wage variation resulting from staggered work hours abstract this paper presents a theoretical basis for varying wage rates with staggered work hours urban scale economies and decreasing marginal returns to labor are shown to exert opposite but not necessarily equal influences on marginal wages an ordered probit model is used with survey data from singapore to estimate income as a function of work start time results indicate the presence of production effects due to staggered work hours urban scale economies are shown to dominate the effect of decreasing marginal returns

interest group competition over policy outcomes dynamics strategic behavior and social costs this paper analyzes a two period model of interestgroup competition between two groups to affect thepolicy outcome the paper characterizes the subgameperfect equilibrium and considers the welfareimplications of the model the subgame perfectequilibrium to this game is allocatively efficient ifand only if the initial equilibrium is allocativelyefficient and interest groups are equally adept atproducing political pressure when rent seeking isconstitutionally protected the notion of rent seekingconstrained efficiency is defined as the cooperativesolution to the rent seeking game it is shown that arent seeking constrained efficient equilibrium isattainable by forcing winners in political competitionto fully compensate losers

career interruptions and subsequent earnings a reexamination using swedish data this paper reexamines the link between career interruptions and subsequent wages using a rich new swedish dataset we are able to disaggregate time out of work into several components regressing

the returns to labour services in west german manufacturing industry production functions distinguishing between the stock and utilisation dimensions of factor labour and capital inputs are critically surveyed an extension to the existing literature is suggested whereby normal and overtime hours are separated within an appropriate non linear functional specification the econometric performance of this model is then compared with the main alternatives from the existing literature the empirical work is based on pooled cross section time series data which refer to west german manufacturing industries 1968 1978 estimates of the returns to labour services are also discussed in the light of related theoretical aspects of factor demand functions

the dynamics of lobbying a differential game this paper presents a dynamic model on lobbying the interactions between two competing lobbies who attempt to influence regulations and legislation are modelled as a differential game we consider for this game first a time consistent and then a subgame perfect equilibrium in linear markov strategies the subgame perfect equilibrium lowers considerably lobbying activity and expenses this provides a partial explanation of the puzzle that rent seeking expenses are often small compared with the prize sought