This paper examines how schools choose class size and how households sort in response to those choices. Focusing on the highly liberalized Chilean education market, we develop a model in which schools are heterogeneous in an underlying productivity parameter, class size is a component of school...

When data on actual choices are not available, researchers studying preferences sometimes pose choice scenarios and ask respondents to state the actions they would choose if they were to face these scenarios. The data on stated choices are then used to estimate random utility models, as if they...

We study a consumer boycott on cottage cheese that was organized in Israel on Facebook in the summer of 2011 following a steep increase in prices after price controls were lifted in 2006. The boycott led to an immediate decline in prices which stayed low more than three years after the boycott....

Clements (2004) makes the following two claims: (i) unlike direct network effects, increases in the size of the market do not, in the case of indirect network effects, make standardization more likely, but (ii) indirect network effects are associated with excessive standardization. We show in...

Using two standard location models, we investigate price competition and divergence from optimal product differentiation when consumer preferences are influenced by the number of consumers purchasing the same brand or shopping at the same store. Negative network effects tend to lessen...

In this Paper, I explore the relationship between native language and use of the Internet and examine whether English is likely to retain its first-mover advantage of a large installed base of English language websites. I study this issue empirically using a unique dataset on (home) Internet use...

This paper estimates a monetary policy reaction function for the ECB over the period 1999-2009. To allow for a potential shift in interest rate setting during the financial crisis, we permit a smooth transition from one set of parameters to another. The estimates show a swift change in the...

The problem introduced by grouping income data when measuring socioeconomic inequalities in health (and health care) has been highlighted in a recent study. We reexamine this issue and show there is a tendency to underestimate the concentration index at an increasing rate when lowering the...

This paper empirically evaluates the effects of antidumping measures on the exports of protected firms. While antidumping protection raises the domestic sales of the more “traditional” non-exporting firms on the protected market with about 5%, it negatively affects the firm-level exports of...

In this paper we propose a new way to formulate optimal policy based on a quadratic intertemporal welfare function where the dynamic constraint is based on a VAR model of the economy which we call the PVAR method. We argue that the VAR under control should not be derived simply by replacing the...