In emerging markets today, legal protections for intellectual property are weak and enforcement is lax. Counterfeiting of consumer goods and infringement on patents, copyrights, and trademarks cost corporations hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Strengthening laws and intensifying...

We consider a firm that is subject to employment protection laws that limit the firm's ability to fire labor. In particular, we suppose that though a firm which shuts down can fire all its workers, it may fire no fewer. Compared to a firm that is subject to no employment protection, a firm...

Some regulatory programs are effective only if firms make some irreversible investments which reduce the cost of compliance. A firm potentially subject to regulation may therefore behave strategically - not investing and thus forcing the regulator to void the proposed regulation. We show that...

The standard economic model for analyzing tarffic congestion, due to A.A. Walters, incorporates a relationship between speed and traffic flow. Empirical measurements indicate a region, known as hypercongestion, in which speed increase with flow. We argue that this relationship is unsuitable as a...

Consider an agent who collects information over time, but who imperfectly recalls the date at which he made each observation. If the state of nature changes over time, then the agent's performance may worsen with experience.