Concerns over grade inflation and disparities in grading practices have led institutions of higher education in the United States to adopt various grading reforms. An element common to several reforms is providing information on the distribution of grades in different courses. The main aims of...

Grade inflation and high grade levels have been subjects of concern and public debate in recent decades. In the mid-1990s, Cornell University's Faculty Senate had a number of discussions about grade inflation and what might be done about it. In April 1996, the Faculty Senate voted to adopt a new...

We examine project selection decisions of …rms constrained in the number of projects they can handle at once. Taking on a project requires a commitment of uncertain duration, restricting the …rm from selecting another project in subsequent periods. Due to the capacity constraints and need for...

We study grading outcomes associated with professors in an elite university in the United States who were identified—using voter registration records from the county where the university is located—as either Republicans or Democrats. The evidence suggests that student grades are linked to...

This paper examines the economic implications of the definition of public use advanced by the Supreme Court in the case of Kelo v. New London. In its ruling, the Court asserted that the Fifth Amendment public use requirement is satisfied if the taking in question, even if for private ends,...

This paper examines how high cost mortgage lending varies by race and ethnicity. It uses a unique panel data that matches a representative sample of mortgages in seven large metropolitan markets between 2004 and 2008 to public records of housing transactions and proprietary credit reporting...

Greater trial delay is commonly associated with decreasing demand for trials, thereby bringing about an equilibrium for a given trial capacity. This note highlights that – in contrast to this premise – trial delay may in fact increase trial demand. Such an outcome is established for a...

We use novel historical data on economics and social rights from the constitutions of 195 countries and an instrument variable strategy to answer two important questions. First, do economic and social rights provisions in constitutions reduce poverty? Second, does the strength of constitutional...

In a multi-country world, currencies do not move in isolation, and competitors’ exchange rate movements may help or hurt an exporting firm. Motivated by this fact, I construct a multi-country model to examine how export prices are affected by movements in own-currency and cross-currency...

This essay examines the historiography of two episodes in history – the scattering of plots in the open fields in the Middle Ages and the transition to the factory system in the Industrial Revolution – to shed light on the uses of institutional economics in economic history. In both of these...