This paper investigates the determinants of informal economic activity. We present two equilibrium models of informality and test their implications using a survey of 48,000+ small firms in Brazil. We define informality as tax avoidance; firms in the informal sector avoid tax payments but suffer...

Hoarding by large speculators is often blamed for contributing to commodity market panics and bubbles. Using supermarket scanner data on US household purchases during the 2008 Rice Bubble, we show that hoarding is in fact more systemic, affecting even households who have no resale motive. Export...

We show that sticky prices exacerbate household hoarding of storable goods. When stores are slow to adjust prices following a cost shock, households have an incentive to stockpile just as in a typical retail sale. This incentive is present even in the absence of traditional panic or...

This paper investigates the evolution of socio-emotional skills over the life cycle and across generations. We start by characterising the evolution of these skills in the first part of the life cycle. We then examine whether parents’ socio-emotional skills in early childhood rather than in...

We develop a model of induced innovation where research effort is a function of the death rate, and thus the potential to reduce deaths in the population. We also consider potential social consequences that arise from this form of induced innovation based on differences in disease prevalence...

We develop a flexible test for changes in the SES-mortality gradient over time that directly accounts for changes in the distribution of education, the most commonly used marker of SES. We implement the test for the period between 1984 and 2006 using microdata from the Census, CPS, and NHIS...

We use a network model of credit risk to measure market expectations of the potential spillovers from a sovereign default. Specifically, we develop an empirical model, based on the recent theoretical literature on contagion in financial networks, and estimate it with data on sovereign credit...

Unlike demand studies in other industries, models of provider demand in health care often must omit a price or any other factor that equilibrates the market. Estimates of the consumer response to quality may consequently be attenuated, if the limited capacity of individual providers prevents...

The long-standing inverse relationship between education and mortality strengthened substantially later in the 20th century. This paper examines the reasons for this increase. We show that behavioral risk factors are not of primary importance. Smoking has declined more for the better educated,...

This paper analyzes the relationship between postmarketing promotional activity and reporting of adverse drug events by modeling the interaction between a welfare maximizing regulator (the FDA) and a profit maximizing firm. In our analysis demand is sensitive to both promotion and regulatory...