A Comparison of Three Brand Evaluation Procedures

The paper reports an empirical examination of the results, reliability,and validity of three attitude measurement procedures—open-ended,paired comparison, and monadic rating. Significant differencesamong the three approaches were found in the evaluation of twobrands on a number of attitudinal dimensions with respect tojudgment of "both brands are alike" and the evaluation of "brandA vs. brand B."     

THE DEVELOPMENT AND DECLINE OF MEDIEVAL VOTING INSTITUTIONS: A COMPARISON OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE

This paper argues that in the middle ages voting institutions emerged as mechanisms that allowed rulers to cooperate with subjects on mutually profitable projects. In spite of their utility, many of these voting institutions eventually declined. We test the model on the English parliament and the French estates general. The historical evidence strongly supports our view that these institutions declined in France, but not in England, due to increases in the heterogeneity of voters' interests and the insecurity of French rulers, since these factors made cooperation between French rulers and their subjects more difficult.     

THE ENTREPRENEUR'S REWARD FOR SELF-POLICING

The collaboration among people is often subject to shirking; the net gain from the collaboration depends on the contract governing it. I argue that the entrepreneur assumes the role of the residual claimant because his actions are more costly to monitor than those of the factors with which he collaborates. By offering fixed pay contracts to others and himself becoming residual claimant, the entrepreneur curtails his incentive to gain at the expense of his partners, and the net gain from the collaboration is then maximized. Costly monitoring applies to both labor and capital, and thus the entrepreneur may supply both labor services and capital. The entrepreneur's capital serves to guarantee the pay of the other factors.     

KNIGHT'S "MORAL HAZARD" THEORY OF ORGANIZATION

In this paper I suggest that besides Knight's well recognized "uncertainty" explanation of the firm, he had another one. "Moral hazard" is the central feature in the second, largely overlooked theory. I argue, and attempt to document, that this theory is not a chance excursion but is rather quite well developed by Knight.