We utilize county-level data to explore the roles of different types of human capital accumulation in U.S. growth determination. The data includes over 3,000 cross-sectional observations and 39 demographic control variables. The large number of observations provides enough degrees of freedom to...

We empirically study the market power of U.S. national brand manufacturers by estimating the size of markups for nationally branded products sold in the U.S. retail grocery industry. We use scanner data from a large Midwestern supermarket chain to compute several different measures of upper and...

We utilize county-level data to explore growth determination in the U.S. and possible heterogeneity in growth determination across individual states. The data includes over 3,000 cross-sectional observations and 39 demographic control variables. We use a consistent two stage least squares...

In this paper, we argue that pricing is all about price changes, and that the costs of price changes are often simultaneously subtle and substantial. We discuss a framework to deal with the dynamics of changing prices. This framework incorporates customer interpretations of price changes, an...

The U.S. prewar output series exhibit smaller shock-persistence than postwar-series. Some studies suggest that this may be due to linear interpolation used to generate missing prewar data. Monte Carlo simulations that support this view generate large standard-errors, making such inference...

We assess the role of cognitive convenience in the popularity and rigidity of 0-ending prices in convenience settings. Studies show that 0-ending prices are common at convenience stores because of the transaction convenience that 0-ending prices offer. Using a large store-level retail CPI data,...

Recent studies in psychology and neuroscience offer systematic evidence that fictional works exert a surprisingly strong influence on readers and have the power to shape their opinions and worldviews. Building on these findings, we study 'Potterian economics', the economic ideas, insights, and...