This study demonstrates how constrained efficient allocations can arise endogenously as equilibria in an economy with a limited ability to enforce contracts and with private agents behaving competitively, taking a set of taxes as given. The taxes in this economy limit risk-sharing and arise in...

Hiring is positively correlated with separation, both across firms and over time. A theory of hiring and separation based on shifts in demand implies the opposite. One firm or industry hires and grows when another fires and contracts. But hiring for expansion and layoff for contraction comprises...

We study tradeoffs among active mutual funds' characteristics. In both our equilibrium model and the data, funds with larger size, lower expense ratio, and higher turnover hold more-liquid portfolios. Portfolio liquidity, a concept introduced here, depends not only on the liquidity of the...

We use a new micro data set that covers all oil fields in the world to estimate a stochastic industry-equilibrium model of the oil industry with two alternative market structures. In the first, all firms are competitive. In the second, OPEC firms act as a cartel. This effort is a first step...

We develop a dynamic political-economic theory of welfare state and immigration policies, featuring three distinct voting groups: skilled workers, unskilled workers, and old retirees. The essence of inter- and intra-generational redistribution of a typical welfare system is captured with a...

A large empirical literature found that the correlation between insurance purchase and ex post realization of risk is often statistically insignificant or negative. This is inconsistent with the predictions from the classic models of insurance a la Akerlof (1970), Pauly (1974) and Rothschild and...

We develop a theoretical model to study how changes in the durability of the goods affects prices of stolen goods, the incentives to steal and the equilibrium crime rate. When studying the production of durable goods, we find that the presence of crime affects consumer and producer surplus and...