We study postpartum decisions about paid work and breastfeeding using a simultaneous equations model. For our sample of higher socioeconomic status mothers, we find a joint decision process for three sets of decisions modeled: work leave duration and duration of any, as well as of exclusive,...

Labels address a market failure - asymmetric information - through costly expenditures borne by consumers, firms, and taxpayers. In this review, we explore when mandatory and voluntary labeling policies may be socially optimal. Although the analysis ostensibly revolves around simple comparisons...

We estimate willingness to pay (WTP) to operate under two types of contracts - tournaments (Ts) and fixed performance-standard contracts (F). Our results are consistent with the notion that subjects having social preferences for fairness and care about risk. That is, when subjects experience...

We posit a spatially explicit, county-level model of the hog production sector and estimate how numerous firm-specific, locality-specific, and spatial agglomeration factors affect the location, movement, and intensity of hog production within 15 key hog production states. Spatial agglomeration,...

A model of vertical product differentiation is used to analyze the labeling of credence goods, focusing on the manner by which quality is communicated. The results indicate that firms prefer private labeling options. In addition, firms may hire private certifiers as well as paying for mandated...

We use economic experiments to investigate how different contract enforcement regimes affect efficiency and the distribution of surplus in a vertically coordinated market with buyer concentration. We find that if a third party (e.g., government) perfectly enforces contracts, social efficiency is...

We develop a model of strategic contractual incompleteness that identifies conditions under which principals might omit even costlessly verifiable terms. We then use experiments to test comparative statics predictions of the model. While it is well known that verifiability imperfections can...

Using experimental economics, we compare the efficiency and welfare effects of tournaments and fixed performance contracts. Our subjects (agents) were generally better off under fixed performance contracts, but the advantage of the fixed performance contract disappears if the relative magnitude...

We use a stated preference instrument to elicit producer preferences for the attributes of risk-shifting hog marketing contracts and express acceptable producer trade-offs between contract attributes in a convenient dollar metric. Respondents value an increase in a window contract's price...

We analyse how age and cognitive skills are related to risk tolerance among respondents to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth between 1993 and 2006. Older individuals display lower risk tolerance than younger individuals, though as the panel ages from their early thirties to their...