We investigate empirically the determinants of the quality of governments in a large cross-section of countries. We assess government performance using measures of government intervention, public sector efficiency, public good provision, size of government, and political freedom. We find that...

When should a government provide a service inhouse and when should it contract out provision? We develop a model in which the provider can invest in improving the quality of service or reducing cost. If contracts are incomplete, the private provider has a stronger incentive to engage in both...

We present a model of trade in which similar countries trade more with each other than very different countries. The reason is that high human capital countries have a comparative advantage at producing high quality goods, but are also rich enough to want to consume high quality. As a result,...

This paper develops a model of Bayesian learning from online reviews, and investigates the conditions for asymptotic learning of the quality of a product and the speed of learning under different rating systems. A rating system provides information about reviews left by previous customers. A...

We present a theory in which the choice set cues a consumer to recall a norm, and surprise relative to the norm shapes his attention and choice. We model memory based on Kahana (2012), where past experiences that are more recent or more similar to the cue are recalled and crowd out others. We...

We present a theory of context-dependent choice in which a consumer's attention is drawn to salient attributes of goods, such as quality or price. An attribute is salient for a good when it stands out among the good's characteristics, in the precise sense of being furthest away in that good from...