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Known for his seminal work in efficiency-wage theory, Andrew Weiss surveys recent research in the field and presents new results. He shows how wage schedules affect the kinds of workers a firm employs and how well those workers perform on the job. Using straightforward examples, he demonstrates how efficiency-wage theory can explain labor market outcomes and guide government policy. There is a separate section of applications to less developed countries. ""Efficiency-wage models represent one of the most important developments in economic theory of recent years. They have, at last, provided

Abstract
When foreigners became the major shareholders of publicly traded firms in the Czech Republic, those firms experienced improvements in performance and increases in investment. In contrast, controlling for ownership type, ownership concentration had no independent effect on performance or investment. The results are robust to the estimation technique used, the choice of independent variables, and the methods used to control for selection bias.

This paper analyzes the role of capital market imperfections for investment decisions, and investigates whether the financial reforms introduced in the 1980s have succeeded in relaxing financial constraints. The estimated equations do not provide evidence that financial reform in Ecuador has helped to relax financial constraints for small firms. (DSE/DÜI)

Abstract
We model economic decisions as stemming from urges. The magnitude of the urge is a function of previous consumption. Welfare gains from satisfying an urge vary with the nature of the urge. An urge is "dysfuntional" if people are willing to incur costs to stop themselves from gratifying that urge. The simple framework we develop captures the essential features of other, more complex models of addiction and problems of self control. We apply the model to analyze cigarette smoking. Our main results are that, under not implausible conditions, making cigarettes more addictive can reduce smoking and making cigarettes more harmful can improve the average health of the population.