Ad blockers allow Internet users to obtain information without generating ad revenue for site owners; and by 2016 they were used by roughly a quarter of site visitors. Given the ad-supported nature of much of the web, ad blocking poses a threat to site revenue and, if revenue losses undermine...

Many empirical studies use Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity (FRD) designs to identify treatment effects when the receipt of treatment is potentially correlated to outcomes. Existing FRD methods identify the local average treatment effect (LATE) on the subpopulation of compliers with values of the...

This study documents a strong inverse relationship between accident rates and production in a sample of eleven firms in the same narrowly defined industry classification. Given the detailed set of input controls and controls for plant-specific and time-specific factors used in the analysis, the...

Improved health, equity, macro-economic efficiency, efficient provision of care, and client satisfaction are the common goals of the health system. The relative significance of these goals varies, however, across nations, communities, and with time. As for health care finance, the attainment of...

Digital labor markets are rapidly expanding and connecting companies and contractors on a global basis. We review the environment in which these markets take root, the micro- and macro-level studies of their operations, their ongoing evolution and recent trends, and perspectives for undertaking...

How do employers attract the right workers? How important are posted wages vs. other job characteristics? Using data from the leading job board CareerBuilder.com, we show that most vacancies do not post wages, and, for those that do, job titles explain more than 90% of the wage variance. Job...

The digitization of content has led to the emergence of platforms that draw information from multiple sources. Policymakers are concerned that these new platforms threaten incentives for the production of original content. As a result, policymakers are contemplating regulations that would force...

We argue that reputation mechanisms used by platform markets suffer from two problems. First, buyers may draw conclusions about the quality of the platform from single transactions, causing a reputational externality across sellers. Second, for a variety of reasons we discuss, reputations will...

Search frictions can explain why the "law of one price" fails in retail markets and why even firms selling commodity products have pricing power. In online commerce, physical search costs are low, yet price dispersion is common. We use browsing data from eBay to estimate a model of consumer...

Online contract labor globalizes traditionally local labor markets, with platforms that enable employers, most of whom are in high-income countries, to more easily outsource tasks to contractors, primarily located in low-income countries. This market is growing rapidly; we provide descriptive...