3,682 research outputs found
Entrepreneurshoip and the Economic Theory of the Firm Any Gains from Trade?
Although they have developed very much in isolation from each other, we argue the theory of entrepreneurship and the economic theory of the firm are closely related, and each has much to learn from the other. In particular, the notion of entrepreneurship as judgment associated with Frank Knight and some Austrian school economists aligns naturally with the theory of the firm. In this perspective, the entrepreneur needs a firm, that is, a set of alienable assets he controls, to carry out his function. We further show how this notion of judgment adds to the key themes in the modern theory of the firm (i.e., the existence, boundaries, and internal organization). In our approach, resource uses are not data, but are created as entrepreneurs envision new ways of using assets to produce goods. The entrepreneur’s decision problem is aggravated by the fact that capital assets are heterogeneous. Asset ownership facilitates experimenting entrepreneurship: Acquiring a bundle of property rights is a low cost means of carrying out commercial experimentation. In this approach, the existence of the firm may be understood in terms of limits to the market for judgment relating to novel uses of heterogeneous assets; and the boundaries of the firm, as well as aspects of internal organization, may be understood as being responsive to entrepreneurial processes of experimentation.Entrepreneurship, heterogeneous assets, judgment, ownership, firm boundaries, internal organization
The Theory of the Firm and Its Critics A Stocktaking and Assessment
Ever since its emergence in the 1970s the modern economic or Coasian theory of the firm has been discussed and challenged by sociologists, heterodox economists, management scholars, and other critics. This chapter reviews and assesses these critiques, focusing on behavioral issues (bounded rationality and motivation), process (including path dependence and the selection argument), entrepreneurship, and the challenge from knowledge-based theories of the firm.
Original and Derived Judgment An Entrepreneurial Theory of Economic Organization
Recent work links entrepreneurship to the economic theory of firm using the Knightian concept of entrepreneurship as judgment. When judgment is complementary to other assets, and these assets or their services are traded in well-functioning markets, it makes sense for entrepreneurs to hire labor and own assets. The entrepreneur’s role, then, is to arrange or organize the human and capital assets under his control. We extend this Knightian concept of the firm by developing a theory of delegation under Knightian uncertainty. What we call original judgment belongs exclusively to owners, but owners may delegate a wide range of decision rights to subordinates, who exercise derived judgment. We call these employees “proxy-entrepreneurs,” and ask how the firm’s organizational structure — its formal and informal systems of rewards and punishments, rules for settling disputes and renegotiating agreements, means of evaluating performance, and so on — can be designed to encourage forms of proxy-entrepreneurship that increase firm value while discouraging actions that destroy value. Building on key ideas from the entrepreneurship literature, Austrian economics, and the economic theory of the firm we develop a framework for analyzing the tradeoff between productive and destructive proxy-entrepreneurship. We link this analysis to the employment relation and ownership structure, providing new insights into these and related issues in the economic theory of the firm.Judgment, entrepreneur, delegation, employment relation, ownership
Reconstruction of N=1 supersymmetry from topological symmetry
The scalar and vector topological Yang-Mills symmetries on Calabi-Yau
manifolds geometrically define consistent sectors of Yang-Mills D=4,6 N=1
supersymmetry, which fully determine the supersymmetric actions up to twist.
For a CY_2 manifold, both N=1,D=4 Wess and Zumino and superYang-Mills theory
can be reconstructed in this way. A superpotential can be introduced for the
matter sector, as well as the Fayet-Iliopoulos mechanism. For a CY_3 manifold,
the N=1, D=6 Yang-Mills theory is also obtained, in a twisted form. Putting
these results together with those already known for the D=4,8 N=2 cases, we
conclude that all Yang--Mills supersymmetries with 4, 8 and 16 generators are
determined from topological symmetry on special manifolds.Comment: 13 page
Entanglement generation in relativistic quantum fields
We present a general, analytic recipe to compute the entanglement that is
generated between arbitrary, discrete modes of bosonic quantum fields by
Bogoliubov transformations. Our setup allows the complete characterization of
the quantum correlations in all Gaussian field states. Additionally, it holds
for all Bogoliubov transformations. These are commonly applied in quantum
optics for the description of squeezing operations, relate the mode
decompositions of observers in different regions of curved spacetimes, and
describe observers moving along non-stationary trajectories. We focus on a
quantum optical example in a cavity quantum electrodynamics setting: an
uncharged scalar field within a cavity provides a model for an optical
resonator, in which entanglement is created by non-uniform acceleration. We
show that the amount of generated entanglement can be magnified by initial
single-mode squeezing, for which we provide an explicit formula. Applications
to quantum fields in curved spacetimes, such as an expanding universe, are
discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Ivette Fuentes previously published as Ivette
Fuentes-Guridi and Ivette Fuentes-Schuller; v2: published version (online),
to appear in the J. Mod. Opt. Special Issue on the Physics of Quantum
Electronic
Heterogeneous Capital, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Organization
We outline an Austrian approach to economic organization based on the entrepreneur and the Austrian idea of capital as heterogeneous and time-dimensioned, tow themes associated with Israel Kirzner's contributions. We provide a novel interpretation of capital heterogeneity based on the notion of attributes, argue that attributes are costly to measure and that this links directly to the theory of economic organization. In particular, we develop insights in economic organization based on the notion that entrepreneurs will often have to experiment with capital assets to gauge the value of these assets when deployed in production.Austrian Economics, capital, knowledge
Universal BPS structure of stationary supergravity solutions
We study asymptotically flat stationary solutions of four-dimensional supergravity theories via the associated G/H* pseudo-Riemannian non-linear sigma models in three spatial dimensions. The Noether charge C associated to G is shown to satisfy a characteristic equation that determines it as a function of the four-dimensional conserved charges. The matrix C is nilpotent for non-rotating extremal solutions. The nilpotency degree of C is directly related to the BPS degree of the corresponding solution when they are BPS. Equivalently, the charges can be described in terms of a Weyl spinor |C > of Spin*(2N), and then the characteristic equation becomes equivalent to a generalisation of the Cartan pure spinor constraint on |C>. The invariance of a given solution with respect to supersymmetry is determined by an algebraic `Dirac equation' on the Weyl spinor |C>. We explicitly solve this equation for all pure supergravity theories and we characterise the stratified structure of the moduli space of asymptotically Taub-NUT black holes with respect with their BPS degree. The analysis is valid for any asymptotically flat stationary solutions for which the singularities are protected by horizons. The H*-orbits of extremal solutions are identified as Lagrangian submanifolds of nilpotent orbits of G, and so the moduli space of extremal spherically symmetric black holes as a Lagrangian subvariety of the variety of nilpotent elements of Lie(G). We also generalise the notion of active duality transformations to an `almost action' of the three-dimensional duality group G on asymptotically flat stationary solutions
Universal BPS structure of stationary supergravity solutions
We study asymptotically flat stationary solutions of four-dimensional
supergravity theories via the associated G/H* pseudo-Riemannian non-linear
sigma models in three spatial dimensions. The Noether charge C associated to G
is shown to satisfy a characteristic equation that determines it as a function
of the four-dimensional conserved charges. The matrix C is nilpotent for
non-rotating extremal solutions. The nilpotency degree of C is directly related
to the BPS degree of the corresponding solution when they are BPS.
Equivalently, the charges can be described in terms of a Weyl spinor |C > of
Spin*(2N), and then the characteristic equation becomes equivalent to a
generalisation of the Cartan pure spinor constraint on |C>. The invariance of a
given solution with respect to supersymmetry is determined by an algebraic
`Dirac equation' on the Weyl spinor |C>. We explicitly solve this equation for
all pure supergravity theories and we characterise the stratified structure of
the moduli space of asymptotically Taub-NUT black holes with respect with their
BPS degree. The analysis is valid for any asymptotically flat stationary
solutions for which the singularities are protected by horizons. The H*-orbits
of extremal solutions are identified as Lagrangian submanifolds of nilpotent
orbits of G, and so the moduli space of extremal spherically symmetric black
holes as a Lagrangian subvariety of the variety of nilpotent elements of
Lie(G). We also generalise the notion of active duality transformations to an
`almost action' of the three-dimensional duality group G on asymptotically flat
stationary solutions.Comment: Few misprints correcte
Gradient Representations and Affine Structures in AE(n)
We study the indefinite Kac-Moody algebras AE(n), arising in the reduction of
Einstein's theory from (n+1) space-time dimensions to one (time) dimension, and
their distinguished maximal regular subalgebras sl(n) and affine A_{n-2}^{(1)}.
The interplay between these two subalgebras is used, for n=3, to determine the
commutation relations of the `gradient generators' within AE(3). The low level
truncation of the geodesic sigma-model over the coset space AE(n)/K(AE(n)) is
shown to map to a suitably truncated version of the SL(n)/SO(n) non-linear
sigma-model resulting from the reduction Einstein's equations in (n+1)
dimensions to (1+1) dimensions. A further truncation to diagonal solutions can
be exploited to define a one-to-one correspondence between such solutions, and
null geodesic trajectories on the infinite-dimensional coset space H/K(H),
where H is the (extended) Heisenberg group, and K(H) its maximal compact
subgroup. We clarify the relation between H and the corresponding subgroup of
the Geroch group.Comment: 43 page
Entrepreneurship and the Economic Theory of the Firm: Any Gains from Trade?
Prepared for
Rajshree Agarwal, Sharon A. Alvarez, and Olav Sorenson, eds.,
Handbook of Entrepreneurship: Disciplinary Perspectives (Kluwer, forthcoming)Includes bibliographical references.Though they developed in isolation, the theory of entrepreneurship and the
economic theory of the firm can be usefully integrated. In particular, the concept of entrepreneurship
as judgment associated with Knight (1921) and some Austrian school
economists aligns naturally with the theory of the firm. Because judgment cannot be
purchased on the market, the entrepreneur needs a firm — a set of alienable assets he
controls — to carry out his function. We show how this notion of judgment illuminates
key themes in the modern theory of the firm (existence, boundaries, and internal organization).
In our approach, resource uses are not data, but are created as entrepreneurs
envision new ways of using assets to produce final goods. The entrepreneur's problem
is aggravated by the fact that capital assets are heterogeneous. Asset ownership allows
the entrepreneur to experiment with novel combinations of heterogeneous assets. The
boundaries of the firm, as well as aspects of internal organization, may also be understood
as responses to entrepreneurial processes of experimentation
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