My thesis consists of three essays that investigate strategic interactions between individuals engaging in risky collective action in uncertain environments. The first essay analyzes a broad class of incomplete information coordination games with a wide range of applications in economics and...

In this paper, a two-country leader-follower model with imperfect asset substitution is used to derive the optimal sterilization coefficients for two-country flexible and fixed exchange rate regimes. It is found that, in general, incomplete sterilization is optimal. However, both the origin and...

This study considers competing theories concerning the role of mass media in hindering or facilitating the translation of personal experience into political preferences. Using national survey and media content data that allows evaluations of both media coverage and individual patterns of media...

Medicare has recently experienced the largest expansion of benefits since its in- ception: the inclusion of prescription drug coverage under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003. The policy debate has mainly focused on estimating the cost of implementing the...

Combining food, entrepreneurship, and economic development, Nuestra Culinary Ventures (NCV) appeals to people’s hearts and stomachs. Operated by Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation, NCV is a nonprofit small business kitchen incubator located in Boston. NCV provides culinary entrepreneurs...

Fenton Village, downtown Silver Spring, Maryland’s small business district, is experiencing a marked decline since the once-struggling downtown began its revival. The competition from new development and lack of government action are hurting Fenton Village, forcing small businesses to close,...

The extent of openness to international trade may alter incentives differentially by gender for labor force participation, particularly in economies in which gender differentials in human capital investments such as schooling are large and in which norms about gender behaviors are strong. This...

Although theories in both evolutionary biology and economics predict that an individual’s health should be associated with the individual’s time preference, no prior study has been done to empirically support or refute such predictions. By collecting detailed measures of health, time...

In thinking about the diffusion of innovation, one tends to overlook the obvious fact that not all innovations are adopted by, or are intended to be adopted by, individuals. In the first place, different sorts of innovations may "require" different units of adoption- for example, "it takes two...