Self regulation is a mechanism of quality vigilance that is frequently used in credence good industries. The providers in these markets generally form a Self Regulated Organization (SRO), composed by some members of the industry, whose main job is to convince consumers through an active...

A partir de la Encuesta Salud, Bienestar y Envejecimiento (SABE) de la OPS-OMS (2001) se estiman los determinantes del estado de salud para los adultos mayores montevideanos (60 años y más). Se utilizan cuatro aproximaciones a dicho estado: limitaciones funcionales, autopercepción,...

This paper is concerned with the general question of the provision of information by financial intermediaries to their customers. Specifically, it analyzes the different ways the market can be organized and its effects on pricing and the level of information investors obtain. We find that market...

Sellers benefit on average from revealing information about their goods to buyers, but the incentive to exaggerate undermines the credibility of seller statements. When multiple goods are being auctioned, we show that ordinal cheap talk, which reveals a complete or partial ordering of the...

We examine a dynamic, durable goods model. A monopolist faces two types of consumers who value the monopolist’s goods differently. The quality of the good improves over time and an improvement is only valuable to consumers if they have previous improvements. In each period, the monopolist can...

New technology is usually expensive and it takes time for manufacturers to make the technology more accessible. In the stereo industry, the first Super Audio Compact Disk (SACD) player made by Sony, SCD-1, sold for $5,000 in 1999; in 2002 the cheapest of Sony's new SACD players, SCD-CE775, had a...

It is widely speculated that the adoption of a technology takes off to be self-sustaining if it reaches the critical mass. However, the sponsors of competing technologies may engage in strategic maneuvering in the adoption process. Indeed, this paper shows that in the de facto standardization...

We examine patent pools in the context of a consortium standard. Although such pools of complementary technologies are approved by antitrust authorities, the actual implementation has proved to be problematic. We identify two possible obstacles: free riding and bargaining failure. We also...

This paper studies the effect that mother's education as knowledge has on child health using height for age as health measure. Using cross sectional data from de 1993 South Africa Integrated Household Survey, and health measures form de National Center for Health Statistics, we find a...

This paper explores the role of life expectancy as a determinant of educational attainment and fertility, both during the demographic transition and after its completion. Two main points distinguish our analysis from the previous ones. First, together with the investments of parents in the human...