Our analysis melds two traditional approaches to promoting quality. The first is restoring the stock of quality. The second is curbing its flow of deterioration. Although both approaches are widely used in real world settings, analytic models have tended to focus on one strategy or the other. We...

We characterize environmental quality as a stock, and its rate of deterioration as a flow. We consider a class of problems, which we call "SFQ" problems, in which both stocks and flows can be controlled to promote the quality of a resource stock. Abatement (curbing the flow) and restoration...

This paper explores the connection between three important threads of economic research offering different approaches to studying the dynamics of an industry with heterogeneous firms. Finite models of the form pioneered by Ericson and Pakes (1995) capture the dynamics of a finite number of...

Ordeals are burdens placed on individuals that yield no direct benefits to others. They represent a dead-weight loss. Ordeals - the most common being waiting time - play a prominent role in health care. Their goal is to direct scarce resources to recipients receiving greater value from them,...

Among political practitioners, there is conventional wisdom about the outcomes of critical and salient legislative votes. 'This vote,' we hear, ' will either win by a little or lose by a lot.' Real-world examples suggest coalition leaders purchase 'hip-pocket' votes and "if you need me" pledges,...