Share the Fame or Share the Blame? The Reputational Implications of Partnerships

We use an adverse selection model to study the dynamics of ?rms?reputations when ?rms implement joint projects. We show that in contrast with projects implemented by a single ?rm, in the case of joint projects a ?rm?s reputation does not necessarily increase following a success and does not necessarily decrease following a failure. We also study how reputation considerations a¤ect ?rms? decisions to participate in joint projects. We show that a high quality partner may not be preferable to a low quality partner, and that a high reputation partner is not necessarily preferable to a low reputation partner. JEL codes: L14, L15, L24, D82, D85

OPTIMAL JOB DESIGN IN THE PRESENCE OF IMPLICIT CONTRACTS

We characterize the optimal job design in a multitasking environment when the firms rely on implicit incentive contracts (i.e., bonus payments). Two natural forms of job design are compared: (i) individual accountability, where each agent is assigned to a particular job and assumes full responsibility for its outcome; and (ii) team accountability, where a group of agents share responsibility for a job and are jointly accountable for its outcome. The key trade-off is that team accountability mitigates the multitasking problem but may weaken the implicit contracts. The optimal job design follows a cut-off rule: firms with high reputation concerns opt for team accountability, whereas firms with low reputation concerns opt for individual accountability. Team accountability is more likely the more acute the multitasking problem is. However, the cut-off rule need not hold if the firm combines implicit incentives with explicit pay-per-performance contracts. JEL codes:

Platform Pricing Structure and Moral Hazard

We study pricing by a monopoly platform that matches buyers and sellers in an environment with cross-market externalities. Said platform has no private information, does not set the commodity's price and can only charge trading parties for the transaction. Our innovation consists in introducing moral hazard on the sellers' side and an equilibrium notion of platform reputation in an infinite horizon model. With linear fees the platform can mitigate, but not eliminate, the loss of reputation induced by moral hazard. If lump-sum fees (registration fees) can be levied, moral hazard can be overcome. The upfront payment determines the participation threshold of sellers and extracts them, while (lower) transactions fees provide incentives for good behavior. This breaks the equivalence of lump-sum payments and linear fees (Rochet and Tirole (2006)). We draw implications for the role of subsidies (Caillaud and Jullien (2003)).Platforms; Two-Sided Markets; Reputation; Moral Hazard

Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching

We investigate the effect of a change in the sex ratio on assortative matching in the marriage market using a large negative exogenous shock to the French male population due to WWI casualties. We analyze a novel data set that links marriage-level data to both French censuses of population and regional data on military mortality. We instrument the potentially endogenous sex ratio with military mortality, which exhibits exogenous geographic variation. We find that men married women of higher social class than themselves (married up) more in regions that experienced a larger decrease in the sex ratio due to higher military mortality. A decrease in the sex ratio from one man for every woman to 0.90 men for every woman increased the probability that men married up by 8.2 percentage points. These findings shed light on individuals’ preferences for spouses. Rather than preferring to marry spouses with similar characteristics, individuals seem to prefer to marry higher-class spouses, but cannot do so when the sex ratio is balanced.Marriage, sex ratio, assortative matching, social classes.

Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching

By observing the large negative exogenous shock to the French male population from to WWI casualties, we study the effect of a change in the sex ratio on marital assortative matching by social class. First, we analyzed a novel data set that links marriage-level to French population and military mortality. Then, we calculated the sex ratio in a region with military mortality, which exhibits exogenous geographic variation. Ultiamtely, we found that men married women of higher social class than themselves more often in regions that experienced a larger decrease in the sex ratio. A decrease in the sex ratio of man to woman from 1.00 to 0.90 increased the probability that men married up by 8 percent. These findings provide insight into individuals’ preferences for spouses. Men appear to prefer to marry higher-class spouses, but cannot do so when the sex ratio is balanced.Marriage, sex ratio, assortative matching, social classes

Contractual signaling, relationship-specific investment and exclusive agreements

I analyze a model of hold-up with asymmetric information at the contracting stage. The asymmetry of information concerns the value of trade with external parties. I show that contractual signaling and efficiency of investment can conflict if only quantity is contractible. This conflict generates inefficient equilibria in terms of investment. Contracting on exclusivity in addition to quantity resolves the conflict and consequently eliminates the inefficiency of investment

An instance of the MIKADO migration model

In this document, we briefly describe the main contribution to the deliverable on experimenting with the implementation of most of the calculi considered in the project. First, we describe how two well known calculi for mobile processes KLAIM and Dπ have been implemented on the top of IMC. We then describe the implementation of the MiKO programming language, an instance of the parametric calculus introduced in the WP1 with the TyCO calculus as the content of the membrane itself. After this, we outline the description of the implementation of the abstract machine for an instance of the Kell Calculus that dedicates particular attention to the proof of its correctness. Our presentation ends with a discussion of the problem of implementing security membranes on the top of an execution platform

Engineering, a course of men: does the inversion of this trend remain?

Commonly, there are more men than women seeking engineering courses, even though, with some common exclusions as for health related engineering courses.Recently, Higher Education in Portugal has faced deep changes, particularly regarding the number of students, the growth of the educational network and the courses' curricular structure. There is an association with the increase in the number of women attending Portuguese Higher Education Institutions and the vast augmentation in the number of students.To investigate whether these changes have also changed the preferences of women/men in engineering courses, options and admissions, from 2010 to 2014, in fifteen engineering courses of a Portuguese University, were studied and the conclusions of that work published [1].In this paper we revisited that work and extended it with data from 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 and we studied, for each course, the number of applicants and the number of students placed (by gender), the application option and the average grades of the admitted applicants.As a result of this analysis we verify that in courses with male predominance, the female gender increased significantly, unlike what happens in the other two courses (female predominance), where the values remain almost constant.This work has been financed by FEDER funds through the Competitivity Factors Operational Programme - COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013

Ants of the Panga Ecological Station, a Cerrado Reserve in Central Brazil

Species lists are an invaluable tool for a more comprehensive analysis of diversity patterns. Such lists, when derived from a comprehensive sampling effort, can indicate the presence of rare, threatened, or ecologically important species. This study aimed to generate a species list of the ants of the Panga Ecological Station, a protected Cerrado reserve in southeastern Brazil. This list was generated through taxonomic identification or through unification of the morphospecies codes of all specimens collected at the reserve in ten different studies since 2003. Information about the types of habitat and strata of occurrence of each species or morphospecies was also compiled. The data presented here represents one of the most intensive ant inventories conducted in the Brazilian Cerrado. We recorded 277 ant species belonging to 58 genera and nine subfamilies. This number is 1.63 to 3.69 times higher than the number of species recorded in other Cerrado localities surveyed so far. More species were collected in the savanna (249 species) than in the forest habitats (108 species), and more species were collected on ground (226 species) than in arboreal vegetation (117 species). Taxonomic identification was possible for 171 of the 277 species collected. Three of the named species are recorded for the first time in Brazil. Among the 106 unidentified species, at least six of them represent new, undescribed species. Together, these results highlight the conservation potential of this Cerrado reserve