Using experimental economics, we compare the efficiency and welfare effects of tournaments and fixed performance contracts. Our subjects (agents) were generally better off under fixed performance contracts, but the advantage of the fixed performance contract disappears if the relative magnitude...

We estimate willingness to pay (WTP) to operate under two types of contracts-tournaments (Ts) and fixed performance-standard contracts (F). Our results are consistent with the notion that subjects having social preferences for fairness and care about risk. That is, when subjects experience...

We use economic experiments to investigate how different contract enforcement regimes affect efficiency and the distribution of surplus in a vertically coordinated market with buyer concentration. We find that if a third party (e.g., government) perfectly enforces contracts, social efficiency is...

We posit a spatially explicit, county-level model of the hog production sector and estimate how numerous firm-specific, locality-specific, and spatial agglomeration factors affect the location, movement, and intensity of hog production within 15 key hog production states. Spatial agglomeration,...

We use a stated preference instrument to elicit producer preferences for the attributes of risk-shifting hog marketing contracts and express acceptable producer trade-offs between contract attributes in a convenient dollar metric. Respondents value an increase in a window contract's price...

A model of vertical product differentiation is used to analyze the labeling of credence goods, focusing on the manner by which quality is communicated. The results indicate that firms prefer private labeling options. In addition, firms may hire private certifiers as well as paying for mandated...

Consumers and the food industry can both prevent foodborne illness. Two questions are explored: what is the socially optimal level of preventative effort by each and can tort and regulatory instruments induce such behavior? Analysis is complicated by two aspects of food safety technology: one...

Using experimental economics, we compare the efficiency and welfare effects of tournaments and fixed performance contracts. Our subjects (agents) were generally better off under fixed performance contracts, but the advantage of the fixed performance contract disappears if the relative magnitude...