This paper estimates the contribution of nature and nurture to the variance of longevity in a cross section of individuals. Our approach differs from that used in the genetics and biological literature in that we develop a simple model of longevity determination and use it to bound the...

Prior to 1996, Israelis in collective communities (kibbutzim) shared the costs of raising children equally. This paper examines the impact of the privatization of kibbutzim on fertility behavior among members. We find that fertility declined by 6-15 percent following the shift to privatization....

Prior to 1996, Israelis in collective communities (kibbutzim) shared the costs of raising children equally. This paper examines the impact of privatizing costs of children on the behavior of young couples using universal microdata on kibbutz members. Exploiting variation in the increase in cost...

Prior to 1996, Israelis in collective communities (kibbutzim) shared the costs of raising children equally. This paper examines the impact of the privatization of kibbutzim on fertility behavior among members. We find that fertility declined by 6-15 percent following the shift to privatization....

In this article we adapt <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="R4">Burtless and Hausman's (1978)</xref> methodology in order to estimate farmers' demand for irrigation water under increasing block-rate tariffs and empirically assess its effect on aggregate demand and inter-farm allocation efficiency. This methodology overcomes the technical...

We present a model in which unemployed workers simultaneously sample n potential employers. By varying n, we nest search and Walrasian-type models of the labor market. We show that low values of n yield typical search equilibria: the wages are dispersed below the marginal productivity of labor....

We consider the consequences of a shared brand name such as geographical names used to identify high quality products, for the incentives of otherwise autonomous firms to invest in quality. We contend that such collective brand labels improve communication between sellers and consumers, when the...