Few micro…nance-funded businesses grow beyond subsistence entrepreneur-ship. This paper considers one possible explanation: that the structure ofexisting micro…nance contracts may discourage risky but high-expected returninvestments. To explore this possibility, I develop a theory that uni…es...

What accounts for the ubiquity of small vendors operating side-by-side in the urban centers of developing countries? Why don't competitive forces drive some vendors out of the market? We ran an experiment in Kolkata vegetable markets in which we induced (via subsidizing) some vendors to sell...

Early modern naturalists were faced with what has been termedthe ‘first bio-information crisis’. A key figure in resolving this crisiswas the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1788). Thispaper will focus on Linnaeus’s day-to-day working routines on thebasis of manuscript material held...

In John B. Calhoun’s early crowding experiments, rats weresupplied with everything they needed – except space. The resultwas a population boom, followed by such severe psychologicaldisruption that the animals died off to extinction. The take-homemessage was that crowding resulted in...