We provide a general framework for the study of cascade effects created by interconnections between sectors, firms or financial institutions. Focusing on a multi sector economy linked through a supply network, we show how structural properties of the supply network determine both whether...

This article reviews the assumptions and methodologies underlying EMU probability calculators,' which infer from financial data the probability of specific countries joining the European Monetary Union. Some historical evidence is presented in support of the expectations hypothesis for...

In this paper I focus on two specific hazard areas in the transition from Stage Two to Stage Three of European economic and monetary union (EMU), as well as on some key problems of Stage Three that EMU's monetary and fiscal structures appear ill-prepared to handle. The transitional hazards are...

When will a monopolist have incentives to foreclose a complementary market by degrading compatibility/interoperability of his products with those of rivals? We develop a framework where leveraging extracts more rents from the monopoly market by "restoring" second degree price discrimination. In...

This paper develops a model of evolving standards for academic publishing. It is motivated by the increasing tendency of academic journals to require multiple revisions of articles and by changes in the content of articles. Papers are modeled as varying along two quality dimensions: q and r. The...

The impact of patent pools on the rate and direction of technological change is an open question in both theoretical and empirical studies. Economic theory makes no unequivocal prediction. By contrast, empirical studies of patent pools, to date, have largely concluded that patent pools have been...

We measure the impact of municipal policies requiring governments to construct green buildings on private-sector adoption of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard. Using matching methods, panel data, and instrumental variables, we find...

In a model of industry standard setting with private information about firms' intellectual property, we analyze (a) firms' incentives to contribute to the development and improvement of a standard, and (b) firms' decision to disclose the existence of relevant intellectual property to other...