This study investigates the role of social networks in aligning the incentives of economic agents in settings with incomplete contracts. We study the New York City taxi industry where taxis are often leased and lessee-drivers have worse driving outcomes than owner-drivers as a result of a moral...

As the number of automobiles continues to rise globally, traffic management has become increasingly challenging. A deep body of economic and social literature from Marshall (1920) and Weber (1892) onwards, suggests that humans and cities benefit from proximity. Proximity, comes at the cost,...

This paper explores how changes in default options can influence consumer behavior in a setting where consumers can use a suggested default or manually enter a tip amount. To identify the impact that different defaults have on behavior, I take advantage of variation within the New York City taxi...

This paper presents a dynamic general equilibrium model of a taxi market. The model is estimated using data from New York City yellow cabs. Two salient features by which most taxi markets deviate from the efficient market ideal is the need of both market sides to physically search for trading...

We study learning by doing (LBD) by New York City taxi drivers, who have substantial discretion over their driving strategies and receive compensation closely tied to their success in finding customers. In addition to documenting significant learning by these entrepreneurial agents, we exploit...