Success is ultimately a story about human behavior. Regardless of the specific domain of the endeavor, the outcome is a product of the individuals involved. Businesses are a function of their employees and customers, just as societies are a function of their citizens and institutions. The...

The developed nations of the world are more concerned than ever with reducing their dependence on imported oil, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and developing alternative energy technologies. These issues are among the highest priorities for developing economies in the Pacific region as well....

This project is a study which examines how attendance levels in Major League Baseball stadiums have been impacted by the current recession in the United States which began in October 2007. Research on attendance during past recessions has shown a strong relationship that during downtrends in the...

We introduce a subsidized Vickrey auction for cost sharing problems. Although the average, marginal, and serial cost sharing mechanisms are budget-balanced, they are not allocatively efficient and they do not induce players to truthfully reveal their values as a dominant strategy. The...

Purpose This study aims to answer the question, “Are people willing to forgo a portion of financial return for social good?” In other words, this study sought to report whether investors would be willing to accept less return, if the invested money could achieve a desired socially‐driven...

In this dissertation, I present five dynamic general equilibrium models. The distinguishing feature of these models is that they incorporate reciprocal altruistic behavior into an otherwise standard New Keynesian framework. In particular, I extend the New Keynesian model such that the assumed...

Guanxi, a type of particularistic trust observed in Confucian societies has mostly been viewed as a static phenomenon. It is not clear how the role of guanxi changes over time during institutional transitions. This field study of twenty one small and medium enterprises (SMEs) located in two...

As networks improve and new services emerge, questions arise that affect service deployments and network choices. The Internet is arguably a successful example of a network shared by many services. However, combining heterogeneous services on the same network need not always be the right answer,...

This dissertation contains three essays that can be read independently. The first chapter examines how a debt crisis can occur and persist as a result of unanticipated, transitory, real interest rate and commodity price shocks. Using an optimal stopping framework, the debtor country's optimal...