Lone mothers are overrepresented among poor people in many European countries. In 1998, in Norway, a welfare reform increased the amount of benefits and introduced working requirements. Using a quasi-experimental model, Mogstad and Pronzato (2012) find a positive effect of the reform on lone...

We explore the determinants of the number of long-term bank relations of listed Japanese firms using a unique data set covering the period 1982-1999. Japanese listed firms have about seven long-term bank loan relations on average, but show a large variation around the average. We analyze the...

This paper provides a theory and firm-level evidence on the incorporation decision of entrepreneurs in a model of taxes and corporate governance. The theory explains how the incorporation decision of entrepreneurs is driven by taxation (corporate and personal income taxes), corporate...

In classical traffic flow theory, there are two velocities associated with a given level of traffic flow. Following Vickrey, economists have termed travel at the higher speed congested travel and at the lower speed hypercongested travel. Since the publication of Walters. classic paper, there has...

We develop a positive theory of pricing car access (by parking fees or cordon tolls) to downtown commercial districts. The model accounts for the special interests of downtown retailers and competing superstores at the edge of the city, and studies how lobbying by both groups shapes the...

Many governments have banned strikes in public transportation. Whether this can be justified depends on whether strikes endanger public safety or health. We use time-series and cross-sectional variation in powerful registry data to quantify the effects of public transit strikes on urban...

We examine the effects of differences in income tax rates on commuting times within multi-state MSAs. Our theoretical model introduces a border into a model of an urban area and shows that differences in average tax rates distort commute times and interstate commutes. Empirically examining...

This paper analyzes cordon tolling using a simple model where space is discrete rather than continuous, with commuting costs incurred only on two congested bridges. The first-best regime requires tolls on both bridges, whereas only the inner bridge is tolled under the cordon-toll regime. While...

In downtown areas, what proportion of curbside should be allocated to parking? In contrast to most previous work on the economics of parking, this paper focuses on optimal curbside parking capacity in both first-best (where pricing is efficient) and second-best (where pricing is inefficient)...

We describe a model that integrates a multi-regional input-output model of the U.S. (50 states and the District of Columbia) with the national highway network. Interstate commodity shipments are placed on a congestible highway network. Simulations of major choke-point disruptions redirect...