Though much has been written about annual income inequality in China, little research has been conducted on longer run measures of income inequality and on income mobility. This paper compares income mobility of urban individuals in China and the United States in the 1990s. The following...

In this paper we present a novel identification strategy for the analysis of social interactions and we shed light on the effect of peer behavior in the choice of college major. Using a newly constructed dataset, we are able to identify the endogenous effect of peers on such decisions. Results...

In this paper we study European banks’ demand for short-term funds during the 2007 subprime market crisis. We use bidding data from the European Central Bank’s auctions for one-week loans. Through a model of bidding, we show that bank behavior reflects the cost of obtaining short-term funds...

Research on the macroeconomic impact of capital account liberalization finds few, if any, robust effects of liberalization on real variables. In contrast to the prevailing wisdom, I argue that the textbook theory of liberalization holds up quite well to a critical reading of this literature. The...

This chapter of the forthcoming Handbook of Law and Economics surveys the theory of the public enforcement of law — the use of governmental agents (regulators, inspectors, tax auditors, police, prosecutors) to detect and to sanction violators of legal rules. The theoretical core of our...

This paper develops a framework for studying individuals’ ideas about what constitutes just compensation for chief executive officers (CEOs) and reports estimates of just CEO pay and the principles guiding ideas of justice. The sample consists of students pursuing a Master of Business...

This paper documents the rise of the Internet as a source of cigarette tax competition for states in the United States. Using data on cigarette tax rates, taxable cigarette sales and individual smoking rates by state from 1980 to 2005 merged with data on Internet penetration, the paper documents...

We use newly-constructed individual-level data on partnership contracts in late nineteenth century Rio de Janeiro to examine differences between limited and unlimited liability firms and partners, and to assess the impact of a major institutional reform that facilitated the formation of joint...

This paper analyzes the interaction of trade policy with the vertical structures of foreign firms exporting goods to the United States, focusing on the case of antidumping duties. I use a model that incorporates both vertical structure and the dynamics of U.S. antidumping duties to show that the...