"What makes social-ecological systems robust? In this paper we look at the institutional configurations that affect the interactions among resources, resource users, public infrastructure providers, and public infrastructures. We propose a framework that helps to identify potential...

Published as:"The Nature of Common-Pool Resource Problems," Rationality and Society 2(3), July 1990, 335-358."A large, multidisciplinary literature focuses on the problems occurring when multiple individuals concurrently use common-pool resources such as fisheries, grazing areas, airsheds, oil...

Subsequently published as:"Incorporating Motivational Heterogeneity into Game Theoretic Models of Collective Action." Public Choice, 117, 2003, 295-315."Understanding cooperation in the context of social dilemma games is fundamental to understanding how alternative institutional arrangements may...

"Social-ecological systems are complex adaptive systems where social and biophysical agents are interacting at multiple temporal and spatial scales. The main challenge for the study of governance of social-ecological systems is improving our understanding of the conditions under which...

This dissertation consists of three chapters studying different issues related to self-employment and entrepreneurship. The first chapter studies the effects of labor market frictions and credit constraints in an economy with self-employment. Two types of self-employed workers emerge in the...

Castro and Coen-Pirani (2008) document that aggregate skilled hours and employment both became more volatile after the mid-1980s, in contrast to the simultaneous volatility decline of most aggregates, including overall hours and employment and unskilled hours and employment. In chapter 1, I...