We examine the relationship between product liability litigation and innovation by systematically combining data on product liability lawsuits with data on new product introductions in a panel dataset of leading medical device firms. We first document a decline in the propensity to introduce new...

In this article I first describe the basic principles that parents employ in disciplining their children. The description is based on a survey of parents, the major results of which are that parental sanctions are premised on wrongdoing--not on the mere causation of harm; that parental sanctions...

The rise of shale gas and tight oil development has triggered a major debate about hydraulic fracturing (HF). In an effort to mitigate risks from HF, especially with respect to water quality, many U.S. states have introduced disclosure mandates for HF wells and fracturing fluids. We use this...

We model home country familiarity with business opportunities in a foreign country as a parameter in a matching process between domestic and foreign firms. We show that as familiarity increases the effect of relative national labor supplies on relative national wages declines, the elasticity of...

We analyze how uncertainty about when information about future returns to a project may be revealed affects investment. While 'good news' about future returns boosts investment, 'good news about news' (that is news that information may arrive sooner) is shown to depress investment. We show that...

Millions of people refuse COVID-19 vaccination. Using original data from two surveys in nine OECD countries, we analyze the determinants of anti-vax intentions in December 2020 and show that half of the anti-vax individuals were vaccinated by summer 2021. Vaccinations were more likely among...

We analyze the diffusion of rival information in a social network. In our model, rational agents can share information sequentially, unconstrained by an exogenous protocol or timing. We show how to compute the set of eventually informed agents for any network, and show that it is essentially...

We introduce information frictions into a tractable quantitative multi-country multi-sector model with global value chains. Producers in a sector do not perfectly observe contemporaneous shocks to other countries and sectors, and their output decisions respond to their idiosyncratic beliefs...

In recent years, there has been widespread concern that misinformation on social media is damaging societies and democratic institutions. In response, social media platforms have announced actions to limit the spread of false content. We measure trends in the diffusion of content from 569 fake...

SMS information campaigns are increasingly used for policy. To investigate their effectiveness, we conduct a lab-in-the-field experiment to study information sharing through mobile phone messages. Subjects are rural households in Mozambique who have access to mobile money. In the base treatment,...