In Chapter 1, I study the efficiency properties of competitive search equilibria in economies with informational asymmetries. Employers and workers are both risk-neutral and ex-ante homogeneous. I characterize an equilibrium where employers post contracts and workers direct their search towards...

This dissertation consists of three essays in empirical labor and health economics. The first chapter examines how the amount of time devoted to a leisure activity varies in response to temporary changes in the price of that activity. Specifically, I estimate the effect of changes in expected...

Chapter 1 analyzes Pareto optimal non-linear taxation of profits and labor income in a private information economy with endogenous firm formation. Individuals differ in both their skill and their cost of setting up a firm, and choose between becoming workers and entrepreneurs. I show that a tax...

This dissertation consists of three essays which examine the impact of public policy on labor market outcomes of those with disabilities. The first essay analyzes a microlending program for people with disabilities in India. People with disabilities are disproportionately represented among the...

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,...