Participants in U.S. markets for live cattle increasingly rely on federal grading standards to price slaughtered animals. This change is due to the growing prominence of ﾓgridﾔ pricing mechanisms that specify explicit premiums and discounts contingent on an animal's graded quality...

We study the incidence and economic rationale for cooperative bargaining in U.S. agricultural markets. Bargaining is not just about increasing price paid to farmers; indeed, there is no empirical research indicating that cooperative bargaining has any direct influence on price. Nevertheless, the...

This paper investigates whether recourse to a consultant always enhances decision making. Advice given by a consultant changes the manager’s belief about his own decision-making ability. This change in belief alters the manager’s incentives to make a decision. Taking into account this...

We develop a stylized dynamic model of highway policing in which a non-racist police officer exhibits a cognitive bias: relative overconfidence. The officer is given incentives to arrest criminals but faces a per stop cost which increases when the racial mix of her stops differs from that of the...

We study incentives for information sharing (about uncertain future demand for final output) among firms in imperfectly competitive markets for farm output. Information sharing generally leads to increases in expected total welfare but may reduce expected firm profits. Even when expected firm...

This paper examines search with active learning and correlated information. We first develop a simple model to show how correlation affects the decision to acquire information. A unique data set on fishing site choice by mid-Atlantic clam fishermen is used to test the model predictions. Results...

This paper examines the strategic non-revelation of information by innovators when applying for patents. The lack of accessible prior art (i.e., an existing set of related inventions) may be responsible for the granting of questionable patents by examiners. In a model of a bilateral search of...

The contributory infringement rule assesses liability to a third party that contributes to the infringement of a patent. Not only are firms that directly infringe liable, those who indirectly contribute are also liable. In the e-commerce world, this rule takes on an important dimension because...

Relative performance schemes such as tournaments are commonly used in markets for a variety of livestock and processing commodities, while explicit versions of these schemes are rarely used in markets for fresh fruits and vegetables and specialty grains. We show how contracts for these latter...

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