Prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) interventions reduce the cumulative probability of transmission from a HIV positive woman to her child by as much as 40 percentage points. This paper is the first economic analysis of the behavioral effects of PMTCT. I examine fertility...

This paper is an exploratory analysis of the role that banks play in supporting what Jevons called the mechanism of exchange. It considers a model economy in which exchange activities are facilitated and coordinated by a self-organizing network of entrepreneurial trading firms. Collectively,...

Using data for 2008/09, we update a 2001/02 study that examined the pricing policies with respect to family income at highly selective private colleges and universities and the distribution of students by family income at these schools. We find significant reductions in net prices relative to...

We assess quantitatively the effect of exogenous reductions in fertility on output per capita. Our simulation model allows for effects that run through schooling, the size and age structure of the population, capital accumulation, parental time input into child-rearing, and crowding of fixed...

This brief paper asks if the proposition that "growth is good" applies with equal force to private business and to private colleges and universities. An increasing appreciation of the fundamental differences in economic structure between business firms and academic institutions suggests that...

In this paper, we present estimates of roommate and institution based peer effects. Using data from the College & Beyond survey, the Freshman survey, and phonebook data that allows us to identify college roommates - we estimate models of students' political persuasion and intellectual...

College tuition, as the price of higher education services, defies familiar economic analysis in important ways. It is recognized that tuition is a price that covers only a fraction of the cost of producing those educational services (about a third, nationally), creating an in-kind subsidy for...

With only a small number of their students coming from families with the lowest incomes (10% from the bottom two family income quintiles), the nation's most selective private colleges and universities need to know why. Two ready ideological answers are (1) that low-income high-ability students...