Occupational licensing is among the fastest-growing labor market institutions in the U.S. economy. One of the key features of occupational licensing is that the law determines who gets to do the work. In those cases where universally licensed occupations are both complements to and substitutes...

As the role of mortgage brokers in mortgage origination grew from insignificant in the 1980s to dominant in recent years, questions have arisen about whether its services help or harm consumers. In response, states have increasingly regulated the business, largely by creating and tightening...

Recent estimates in standard models of wage determination for both unionization and occupational licensing have shown wage effects that are similar across the two institutions. These cross-sectional estimates use specialized data sets, with small sample sizes, for the period 2006 through 2008....

Legal rules governing the employer-employee relationship are many and varied. Economic analysis has illuminated both the efficiency and the effects on employee welfare of such rules, as described in this paper. Topics addressed include workplace safety mandates, compensation systems for...

When is it socially advantageous for legal rules to be changed in the light of altered circumstances? In answering this basic question here, a simple point is developed -- that past compliance with legal rules tends to reduce the social advantages of legal change. The reasons are twofold:...

Comparing the safety of prescription drugs over time is difficult due to the paucity of reliable quantitative measures of drug safety. Both the academic literature and popular press have focused on drug withdrawals as a proxy for breakdowns in the drug safety system. This metric, however, is...

Understanding and minimizing the transaction costs of policy implementation are critical for reducing tropical forest losses. As the international community prepares to launch REDD+, a global initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from tropical deforestation, policymakers need to pay...

The British North American colonies were the first western economies to rely on legislature-issued paper monies as an important internal media of exchange. This system arose piecemeal. In the absence of banks and treasuries that exchanged paper monies at face value for specie monies on demand,...

Casual empiricism suggests that deceptive advertising about product quality is prevalent, and several classes of theories explore its causes and consequences. We provide some unusually sharp empirical evidence on the extent, mechanics, and dynamics of deceptive advertising. Ski resorts...

We study the relationship between employee satisfaction and abnormal stock returns around the world, using lists of the "Best Companies to Work For" in 14 countries. We show that employee satisfaction is associated with positive abnormal returns in countries with high labor market flexibility,...