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...

The study examines cattle keeping households’ preferences for phenotypic cattle traits in trypanosomosis prevalent production systems of Kenya and Ethiopia, using cross-sectional choice experiment survey data of 508 households. The data was collected between September 2004 and May 2005....

Covers conditions under which public-sector policies, programs, and projects succeed in enhancing the economic activities of poorer groups and micro-regions in developing countries. Topics include local economic development; small enterprises; various forms of collective action; labor and worker...

Cooperative business firms are prevalent in agribusiness, yet no concise generalizedmodel exists to demonstrate how and why cooperative firms differ from, and may beselected over, the more common investor owned business firm. It is shown within ageneric transaction game that cooperatives fill...

In this paper, I develop and estimate a dynamic model of strategicnetwork formation with heterogeneous agents. The main theoretical resultis the existence of a unique stationary equilibrium, which characterizesthe probability of observing a specific network in the data. As aconsequence, the...

This paper investigates how internet users' perception of control overtheir personal information affects how likely they are to click ononline advertising. The paper uses data from a randomized fieldexperiment that examined the relative effectiveness of personalizing adcopy to mesh with existing...

A criticism often levelled at poor HR practice is that practitioners "don’t know the business" or are "isolated in their ivory towers". However the diverse nature of the roles played by HR practitioners naturally leads to the development of networks not only within the organisation, but...

Sexual activity among adolescents is associated with risks such as pregnancy and STDs, and there is substantial policy interest in how peers influence the timing of sexual initiation. This paper measures separate effects for two social mechanisms--peer-group norms and partner availability--using...

MRQAP (Multiple Regression { Quadratic Assignment Procedure) tests are permutation tests for multiple regression coe±cients for data organized in square matrices instead of vectors. Such a data structure is typical in social network studies, where variables indicate some type of relation...

Viral marketing is the business approach that uses peer-to-peer communications to increase product awareness and adoptions through widespread social networks of receivers. Benefiting from the unprecedented fast growth of online social networks, this marketing maneuver merits a deeper...