The broad aim of this paper is to gain some insight into the quantitative importance of reputation in e-commerce. We use an exhaustive data set from one of France’s largest e-commerce platforms, <a href="http://www.priceminister.com/">PriceMinister.com </a>, to estimate a statistical causal effect of a seller’s reputation (and size)...

This paper proposes a new Bayesian approach for estimating, nonparametrically, parameters in econometric models that are characterized as the solution of a linear inverse problem. By using a Gaussian process prior distribution we propose the posterior mean as an estimator and prove consistency,...

This paper studies how the risk of divorce a¤ects the human capital decisions of a young couple. We consider a setting where complete specialization (one of the spouses uses up all the education resources) is optimal with no divorce risk. Symmetry in education (both spouses receive an equal...

We develop a dynamic model of investment, cash holdings, financing, and risk management policies in which firms face financing frictions and are subject to permanent and temporary cash ow shocks. In this model, target cash holdings depend on the long-term prospects of the firm, implying that the...

We document investment distortions induced by the use of a single discount rate within firms. According to textbook capital budgeting, firms should value any project using a discount rate determined by the risk characteristics of the project. If they use a unique company-wide discount rate, they...

The European Securities Trading and Post-trading (Clearing and Settlement) Industries have recently experienced a vast movement of consolidation. This was encouraged by the European Commission, seeking to establish a single market for the trade of financialsecurities across the European Union,...

A model of entrepreneurial choices in an economy with a corrupt public procurement sector is built, providing predictions along two main dimensions. First, corruption is more frequent in sectors where public institutions are large buyers. Second, firms favoured with corrupt contracts enjoy extra...

This paper tries to reconcile the observed fact that suicide-terrorists have a relatively high education level with rationality. It brings out the conditions under which potential students choose to acquire some education in a rational-choice model where this yields a non-zero probability of...

We test the hypothesis that "genuine" or "convincing" smiling is a costly signal that has evolved to induce cooperation in situations requiring mutual trust. Potential trustees in a trust game made video clips for viewing by potential trusters before the latter decided whether to send them...

We find evidence of significant price manipulation at the stock level by hedge funds on critical reporting dates. Stocks in the top quartile by hedge fund holdings exhibit abnormal returns of 30 basis points in the last day of the month and a reversal of 25 basis points in the following day....