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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2024‒10‒07
two papers chosen by Laura Nicola-Gavrila, Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor |
| By: | Jean-Michel Benkert; Shuo Liu; Nick Netzer |
| Abstract: | Response times contain information about economically relevant but unobserved variables like willingness to pay, preference intensity, quality, or happiness. Here, we provide a general characterization of the properties of latent variables that can be detected using response time data. Our characterization generalizes various results in the literature, helps to solve identification problems of binary response models, and paves the way for many new applications. We apply the result to test the hypothesis that marginal happiness is decreasing in income, a principle that is commonly accepted but so far not established empirically. |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2408.14872 |
| By: | Eric Bartelsman (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Sabien Dobbelaere (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Alessandro Zona Mattioli (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence from a natural experiment on the importance of tacit knowledge that workers have about firms’ intangible assets for competition in product and labor markets. First, evidence is presented on product and labor market imperfections across firms in manufacturing and services industries in the Netherlands. Price-cost markups and wage markups are both shown to be positively related to intangible intensity at the firm level. A model is developed of the processes of intangible investment and wage bargaining of heterogeneous firms, providing a mechanism that relates workers’ tacit knowledge to product and labor market imperfections at the firm level. The model also incorporates a role for non-compete agreements (NCAs) limiting worker mobility. Our main empirical contribution comes from using linked employer-employee panel data with information on NCAs and changes in enforceability of these agreements. Using an event-study framework, we demonstrate that the removal of NCAs leads to higher wages and worker mobility and that the effect is stronger for workers employed in intangible-intensive firms. We find that NCAs affect workers across the skill distribution and across industries. The causal findings from changes in the legality of NCAs correspond with the mechanism described in the model. |
| Keywords: | Price-cost markups, rent sharing, technology, tacit knowledge, non-compete agreements |
| JEL: | J41 L10 M52 |
| Date: | 2024–09–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20240055 |