This thesis is a collection of three theoretical essays on institutions and economic growth. Chapter 1 considers a particular institution: ethnicity. Ethnic, religious and tribal divisions are empirically associated with economic underdevelopment. I construct a model in which groups form...

This dissertation analyzes different aspects of the globalization process. In recent years we witnessed an increasing role of emerging economies in world capital markets. Moreover, there has been a large reduction in trade costs which has allowed production to be offshored to less developed...

This thesis is a collection of papers in which behavior genetic methods are used to shed light on individual differences in economic preferences, behaviors and outcomes. Chapter one uses the classical twin design to provide estimates of genetic and environmental influences on experimentally...

In this thesis, I explore the properties of a martingale hypothesis test, and present three applications of the test that address empirical questions in asset-pricing finance. The martingale test exploits the lack of correlation between forecast error and the current information set. The test is...

This dissertation presents three essays in Corporate Finance. In the first essay, I study managerial incentives in internal capital markets. In particular, I develop a two-tiered agency model to study division managers' incentives within internal capital markets. Division managers try to...

When a contract is signed between two economic agents, it is likely to produce some effect on non-contracting, third parties and provide new information to the contracting parties. This thesis examines how such third party externality and newly generated information should affect the initial...

The first essay explores the relationship between openness and growth. As, Rodriguez and Rodrik (2000) argue, the relation between openness and growth is still an open question. One of the main problems in the assessment of the effect is the endogeneity of the relation. In order to address this...

This dissertation consists of three chapters in Industrial Economics. Chapter 1 is the product of joint work with Filippo Balestrieri. In chapter 1 we examine the use of lotteries among horizontal differentiated goods as a mechanism to price discriminate consumers. We use the linear city model...

Chapter 1 is the product of joint work with Ferhat Akbas and it provides a behavioral explanation for monthly negative serial correlation in stock returns. For the first time in the literature, this work reports that only low momentum stocks experience monthly negative serial correlation. Using...

This thesis consists of three essays that examine investment choices in less developed countries. Chapter 1 examines how the structure of existing microfinance contracts may discourage risky but high-expected return investments. I develop a theory that unifies models of investment choice,...