The purpose of this paper is to obtain the optimal competitive outputs for three different firms having constant risk utility functions.

Journal Article Dr. Hansen on the Inflationary Gap: Further Comment Get access J. J. Paunio J. J. Paunio Helsinki Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 22, Issue 2, 1954, Pages 151–152, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296289 Published: 01 January 1954

Journal Article The “Optimum Tariff” and the Cost of Exports Get access J. J. Polak J. J. Polak Washington, D.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 19, Issue 1, 1950, Pages 36–41, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296269 Published: 01 December 1950

Journal Article International Propagation of Business Cycles Get access J. J. Polak J. J. Polak Geneva Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 6, Issue 2, February 1939, Pages 79–99, https://doi.org/10.2307/2967392 Published: 01 February 1939

Benchmarking, pay for luck, and the large compensation packages given to CEOs in recent years are three major controversial compensation practices. We examine the extent to which variation in the market for CEO talent explains these practices. We find that CEO compensation is benchmarked against other firms only in industries where CEO talent is not firm-specific, and that pay for luck is more prevalent there also. These findings are consistent with theories based on the market for CEO talent. However, CEO compensation levels do not depend on whether CEO talent is firm-specific, which seems inconsistent with the talent competition argument.

To create value and reduce agency costs, firms adopt available organizational structures that match their attributes. This paper studies the characteristics of firms that choose to become master limited partnerships (MLPs). The MLP sample is dominated by firms in low-growth industries that have highly focused operations and superior profitability compared to their industry peers. After becoming an MLP, sample firms reduce capital expenditures and increase cash distributions, taking advantage of their focus, profitability, and status as non-taxable entities. A subsample of MLPs subsequently change back to corporate form. After becoming corporations, these firms reverse course by cutting cash distributions and increasing capital spending. This cycle demonstrates how firms restructure to adopt organizational forms that best fit their needs.

This paper analyzes a new explanation of the “ripple effect” of minimum wages based on how minimum wages affect hedonic compensation. Minimum wage hikes lower compensating differentials at low-skill undesirable jobs because they raise wages at the most desirable low-skill job, the minimum wage job. This change in hedonic compensation may cause some individuals to optimally leave low-wage undesirable jobs and seek more desirable employment. If labor supply falls at low-wage undesirable jobs, employers would raise wages, consistent with the ripple effect. Empirically, I provide evidence that hedonic-based labor supply substitution is taking place and contributing to the ripple effect.

This article develops a model in which quit rates, and thus the income distribution, depend on employee perceptions of the accuracy of employer assessments of individual productivity because these latter assessments affect wages. When employees believe that these assessments are accurate, income inequality tends to be high. The model can account for the negative correlation across some countries of inequality and the extent to which inequality is deemed to be excessive. It also fits the contrast in U.S. and French experiences concerning the tenure of highly educated workers with high wages relative to the tenure of lower‐paid workers.

Although much research has focused on recent increases in annual earnings inequality in the United States, the increases could have come from either of two sources: the distribution of lifetime earnings could have become more unequal or the receipt of lifetime earnings could have become more unstable. Based on an analysis of the 1968–92 Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we find that lifetime earnings inequality increased during the early 1980s and that earnings instability increased during the 1970s. We also examine how these trends are related to changes in the distribution of wages and hours and the returns to education.