It is universally accepted that children have important effects on household demand patterns. This is usually attributed to the direct effect of children; for example children are food intensive. Alternative inferences are that the observed correlations between children and demand patterns are...

People believe that, even in very large samples, proportions of binary signals might depart significantly from the population mean.  We model this "non-belief in the Law of Large Numbers" by assuming that a person believes that proportions in any given sample might be determined by a rate...

One of the main elements of the current reform of electricity trading in the UK is the change from a uniform price auction in the wholesale market to discriminatory pricing. We analyse this change under two polar market structures (perfectly competitive and monopolistic supply), with demand...

The paper proves the existence of equilibrium in nonrenewable resource markets when extraction costs are non-convex and resource storage is possible.  Inventories flatten the consumption path and eliminate price jumps at the end of the extraction period.  Market equilibrium becomes then...

This paper analyses the impact of cost competitiveness and technology on export performance using a very rich panel datset of 12 manufacturing industries in 14 OECD countries for the period between 1970 and 1992.

Many dynamic economic situations, including certain markets, can be fruitfully modeled as binary-action stochastic sequential games.  Such games have a state variable, which in the case of a market might be the inventory of the good waiting for sale.  Conditional on the state, players choose...

What is the relationship between entrepreneurial saving practices and reinvestment?  We develop a model of entrepreneurial finance and show that entrepreneurial reinvestment decisions depend on the efficiency of saving practices.  Utilizing a novel micro & small enterprise survey from Tanzania...

Rational demand for hedging products, where there is a risk of contractual nonperformance, is fundamentally different to that for indemnity insurance.  In particular, optimal demand is zero for infinitely risk averse individuals, and is nonmonotonic in risk aversion, wealth and price.  For...

This paper analyses collusion-proof multilateral insurance contracts between a risk neutral insurer and multiple risk averse agents in an environment of asymmetric costly state verification.  Optimal contracts involve the group of agents pooling uncertainty and the insurer acting as reinsurer...

Counselling agencies assist borrowers in financial difficulties by administering repayment plans, the so-called debt management plans (DMPs).  In this paper, we use unique administrative data from a major credit counselling agency in the UK to analyze the determinants of debt repayment...