This thesis consists of three studies of labor markets where differences in talent are associated with very large differences in income. The unifying theoretical feature is the view that the analysis of such labor markets should take into account the scarcity of jobs, which is a natural...

Economies around the world are marked by major interventions in credit markets. Institutions ranging from central banks to the Grameen Bank operate under the assumptions that credit markets are imperfect, that these imperfections can be ameliorated, and that doing so increases output. There is...

This thesis consists of three separate papers. In the first paper, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), which has measures of both risk preferences and religiosity along with measures of many risky behaviors, I investigate the implications of the correlations among risk preferences,...