This paper describes a numerically efficient Machine Learning approach for solving the farm manager’s land allocation problem in a manner that requires neither a distributional assumption on crop returns nor an expected utility specification. The method is based on the idea that a farm manager...

We derive a mapping between the shortfall-minimizing portfolio selection based on higher order entropy measures and expected utility theory. We show that the family of HARA utility functions has a minimum-divergence, shortfall-based representation. This facilitates an interpretation in which the...

We construct an agency-based model of incentive contracting within the education system. We use this framework to evaluate first-best, second-best, and pooling contracts under a variety of assumptions germane to the consolidation of elementary and secondary schools. By introducing a monitoring...

Heady (1952) suggests that farm managers seek the allocation of crops that best minimizes the probability of realizing a disastrous harvest. I use this intuitive idea to construct a normative model of land allocation that is more robust to distributional assumptions and utility specifications...

The "Lake Wobegon Effect'' describes the potential bias introduced into survey-based analyses of education issues, because students systematically over-report academic achievements such as grade-point average. While the use of official-records data negates this effect, many researchers can only...

This paper ranks 95 journals germane to the health economist. The ranking is computed using the h-index and g-index, which are popular citation-based metrics reported by Harzing’s Publish or Perish software. Additional ranking metrics are also discussed. The intention is to create a list that...

This paper describes a flexible way to unify the many disparate citation-based journal ranking metrics commonly used to assess the relative merit of academic business journals. The guiding principle for the proposed approach is the simple and intuitively appealing idea that a journal in a given...

Scholar-level and journal-level citations, and metrics built thereupon, have transformed how many colleges and universities assess the scholarly output of their faculty. Journal impact factors and scholar-level h-indices, among many other metrics, now appear in promotion, renewal, and tenure...

A common result in the trade literature is that a small country will realize gains from a bilateral free trade agreement with a large country. McLaren (1997) casts aspersions on this traditional belief by demonstrating that irreversible investment in the small country, with the possibility of...