This paper develops a generalized hedonic model in which an exogenous shock to a single product attribute can affect other attributes, the markets for the product's complements and substitutes, and aggregate quantity produced. These factors are shown to be empirically relevant and to cause bias...

Commodity price volatility in international markets has been used to justify numerous policy interventions, including the need for buffer stocks and counter-cyclical payments. The common measure of volatility, the standard deviation or coefficient of variation, likely overstates the actual...

The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics estimates of the costs of road congestion in Australian capital cities ($9.4 billion in 2005 and projected to more than double by 2020) are widely cited. But these projections appear to overstate the problem and provide little, if...

We model a competitive labor market with heterogeneous firms of varying productivities, and consider two information-collection processes: searching for "good news" about applicants, and searching for "bad news." Under the former, firms seek positive signals to qualify applicants, and under the...

We introduce uncertainty in our general equilibrium model with multi-member groups, following the classical state-space approach of Arrow-Debreu. A host of new interesting economic issues emerge. First, risk averse agents can attempt to insure themselves through markets or through mutual...

In empirical economic analysis efficiency measurement traditionally at the macro and micro level is based on a production model using profit maximization or cost minimization for a single representative entrepreneur as its foundation. Common indicators are ratios of an output-indicator and...

Economic evaluation of projects involving changes in mortality risk conventionally assumes that lives are statistical, i.e., that risks and policy-induced changes in risk are small and similar among a population. In reality, baseline mortality risks and policy-induced changes in risk often...

Analysis of efficiency in legal fields from contracts to competition assumes that a consumer's demand depends on the price the consumer faces, not on the prices a firm charges other customers. This project provides evidence to the contrary. It examines how the phenomenon impacts the analysis of...

The social discount rate used in cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is an interest rate applied to benefits and costs that are expected to occur in the future in order to convert them into a present value. This conversion is done to ascertain what those benefits and costs are worth today. The social...