Combining depth, length and breadth, the Great Recession is the worst economic downturn that the US economy has suffered since the Great Depression. Among other things, the recession reduced household income, caused significant changes in food prices and increased consumer uncertainties. These...

This paper presents a general equilibrium analysis of economic efficiency under externalities, transaction costs and non-convexity. It applies to market exchange as well as contractual arrangements. We show that the Coase theorem continues to hold under general conditions: the efficient...

Xi Chen acknowledges generous Doctoral Research Grant from the Institute for the Social Sciences at Cornell University and precious data set provided by the Development Strategy and Governance Division at IFPRI. Conference Travel Grant provided by the Department of Applied Economics and...

Spending on political advertising increases with every election cycle, not only for congressional or presidential candidates, but also for state-level ballot initiatives. There is little research in marketing, however, on the effectiveness of political advertising at this level. In this study,...

In economic models of behavior consumers are assumed to value the goods and services they purchase based on stable preferences over externally identifiable attributes such as quality. These models predict that consumers will respond to changes in price in a way that is independent of the source...

Numerous national transfer programs around the world are designed with uniform benefit schedules imposed by central governments, but implemented by local governments. The Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) in Ethiopia, the second largest safety net in Sub Saharan Africa, is one such program....

Childhood obesity has been recognized as not only a personal disease, but also as a social problem inducing government development of policies to address the childhood obesity problem. Since the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) has been one of the most important nutrition supplement programs...