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on Cognitive and Behavioural Economics |
| By: | Kameliia Petrova (Boston College) |
| Abstract: | I study the effect of workers' motivation on the firm's choice of how much autonomy employees should be given. The main hypothesis of the paper is that employers give autonomy to workers who are already especially motivated. The empirical work is based on data from Wave 1 of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), a nationally representative longitudinal study of health, retirement, and aging. The HRS provides unique information on individual's motives and autonomy on the job. Estimating a continuous latent variable model, I find evidence that motivated workers are more likely to be in autonomous jobs, and that they receive higher wages in autonomous jobs. |
| Keywords: | Personnel Management; Intrinsic Motivation; Decentralization |
| JEL: | M13 |
| Date: | 2005–10–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0510010&r=cbe |
| By: | Yan Chen; Peter Katuscak; Emre Ozdenoren |
| Abstract: | We find robust gender differences in bidding behavior in sealed bid auctions with independent and private valuations in a laboratory setting. In particular, we find that women bid significantly higher and earn significantly less than men do in the first-price auction, while we find no evidence of a gender difference in the likelihood of dominant strategy play in the second-price auction. At a biological level, in the first-price auction, women during menstruation, when the estrogen level is lowest, do not bid differently from men. The gender difference in the first-price auction is driven by women during other phases of the menstrual cycle when they have higher estrogen levels. |
| Keywords: | Gender, menstrual cycle, auction. |
| JEL: | C91 D44 D83 |
| Date: | 2005–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp275&r=cbe |
| By: | Timothy G. Conley; Christopher R. Udry (Economic Growth Center, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the role of social learning in the diffusion of a new agricultural technology in Ghana. We use unique data on farmers’ communication patterns to define each individual’s information neighborhood, the set of others from whom he might learn. Our empirical strategy is to test whether farmers adjust their inputs to align with those of their information neighbors who were surprisingly successful in previous periods. We present evidence that farmers adopt surprisingly successful neighbors’ practices, conditional on many potentially confounding factors including common growing conditions, credit arrangements, clan membership, and religion. The relationship of these input adjustments to experience further supports their interpretation as resulting from social learning. In addition, we apply our methods to input choices for another crop with known technology and they correctly indicate an absence of social learning effects. |
| Keywords: | Social Learning, Technology, Innovation |
| JEL: | O31 O12 O13 |
| Date: | 2000–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egc:wpaper:817&r=cbe |
| By: | Poul Houman Andersen; Poul Rind Christensen |
| Abstract: | MNCs and regional innovation systems differ widely in their knowledge generation and dissemination processes. We propose these differences provide systematic challenges for MNC units tapping into locally vested skills, combining their findings with existing knowledge and disseminating this internally. Our aim is to develop a framework for conceptualising the knowledge transfer process between MNCs and regional innovation systems. For that purpose we develop a conceptual model of the knowledge tapping process and a set of propositions. |
| Keywords: | MNCs; Knowledge management; Industrial districts |
| JEL: | D83 F23 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:05-16&r=cbe |
| By: | Christian Bjørnskov; Axel Dreher; Justina A.V. Fischer |
| Abstract: | This paper explores a wide range of determinants of life satisfaction exploiting a database of 73 countries, based in turn on about 100 000 observations. The determinants can be categorized in four groups: political, economic, institutional factors and human development and culture. The relevance of these factors is estimated on country-level averages of satisfaction of sub-groups of national populations according to gender, income and political orientation, using OLS, robust regression and Extreme Bounds Analysis techniques. Our results show that only a small number of factors robustly influence life satisfaction across countries while the importance of a large number of alternative factors suggested in the previous literature is rejected. |
| JEL: | I31 H10 H40 |
| Date: | 2005–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:dp2005:2005-19&r=cbe |