The first chapter studies Entrepreneurship and the Stigma of Failure. Entrepreneurial activity varies substantially across countries and sectors and appears to be related to the stigma of failure. To understand this phenomenon, I present a multiple-equilibrium model based on endogenous stigma of...

In this dissertation, I present three essays that are motivated by the interesting and dynamic price-setting behavior of firms in Canadian retail gasoline markets. In the first essay, I examine behavior at the market level for 19 Canadian cities over 574 weeks. I find three distinct pricing...

This dissertation consists of three empirical essays related to information and investment. The first essay asks whether investments in advertising bias the information consumers receive about advertisers' products. Using ratings from two U.S. wine publications, only one of which accepts...

Countries that have pursued distortionary macroeconomic policies, including high inflation, large budget deficits and misaligned exchange rates, appear to have suffered bigger exchange rate crises, more macroeconomic volatility and also grown more slowly during the postwar period. Does this...

Chapter 1 analyzes Pareto optimal non-linear taxation of profits and labor income in a private information economy with endogenous firm formation. Individuals differ in both their skill and their cost of setting up a firm, and choose between becoming workers and entrepreneurs. I show that a tax...

This thesis consists of four essays about "uncertainty" and how markets deal with it. Uncertainty is about subjective beliefs, and thus it often comes with heterogeneous beliefs that may be present temporarily or even forever. The first essay analyzes the effect of uncertainty, and the...

This thesis explores power and consistency of estimation and inference procedures with moment inequalities, and applications of the moment inequality framework to estimation of frontiers in finance. In the first chapter, I consider estimation of the identified set and inference on a partially...

Chapter 1 develops a non-parametric methodology for identifying contract optimality in the presence of moral hazard. Following the first order approach, a standard method of computing optimal contracts, the paper first proves two theoretical properties of the solutions to the moral hazard...

The three chapters which comprise my thesis are a collection of essays on the analysis of the corporate governance and airline markets and of the federal appellate structure. In Chapter 1, I use a discrete choice framework to analyze state design and firm choice of the implications of...

This thesis explores the impact of individual decision making on the functioning of firms and markets. The first chapter examines how deviations from strict rationality by individuals impact the market for consumer goods. A growing body of evidence documents individual behavior that is difficult...