Markets that involve customers waiting for services or goods in queues whose length they cannot observe are studied. In these markets suppliers truncate queues that become so long that they jeopardize the supplier's future relations with the customer. The length of the queue and the probability...

Generators applying to connect to the U.S. power grid go through an interconnection queue. Most wind and solar generators that begin the process do not complete it. Using new data, we find that a long queue increases the average waiting time, and high interconnection costs are a key factor in a...

Requiring agents with private information to select from a menu of incentive schedules can yield efficiency gains. It will do so if, and only if, agents will receive further private information after selecting the incentive schedule but before taking the action that determines where on the...

Little is known about the fiscal costs of natural disasters, especially regarding social safety nets that do not specifically target extreme weather events. This paper shows that US hurricanes lead to substantial increases in non-disaster government transfers, such as unemployment insurance and...

This paper studies the maturity and stream of payments of sovereign debt. Using Bloomberg bond data for eleven emerging economies, we document that countries react to crises by issuing debt with shortened maturity but back-load payment schedules. To account for this pattern, we develop a...