With declining population and fertility rates below replacement levels, Russia is currently facing a demographic crisis. Starting in 2007, the federal government has pursued an ambitious pro-natalist policy. Women who give birth to at least two children are entitled to "maternity capital"...

This paper estimates the economic and non-economic returns to volunteering for prime-aged women. A woman's decision to engage in unpaid work, and to marry and have children, is formulated as a forward-looking discrete choice dynamic programming problem. Simulated maximum likelihood estimates of...

We determine the optimal timing for replacement of an emerging technology facing uncertainty in both the output price and the arrival of new versions. Via a sequential investment framework, we determine the value of the investment opportunity, the value of the project, and the optimal investment...

The relationship between uncertainty and managerial flexibility is particularly crucial in addressing capital projects. We consider a firm that can invest in a project in either a single (lumpy investment) or multiple stages (stepwise investment) under price uncertainty and has discretion over...