Usury laws cap the interest rates that lenders can charge. Using data from Prosper.com (an online lending marketplace), I show how interest rate caps affect: 1) the probability that a loan is funded; 2) the amount a borrower requests; 3) the interest rate at which a loan is funded; and 4) loan...

In this paper, employing the political agency framework, we revisit the comparison between autocracy and democracy with respect to their effect on growth outcomes. We find that ability to replace an incumbent political leader through election is no guarantee in itself for the welfare superiority...

We analyze price patterns at franchised and corporate-owned McDonald's outlets in 1999 and 2006 and find that prices at franchised outlets were higher than those at corporate outlets. The price difference between franchised and corporate outlets decreased between 1999 and 2006 but only for items...

This paper examines the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in five Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries for different periods ranging from 1960 to 2004, within a trivariate vector autoregressive (VAR) framework. We employ four different measures of...

This paper investigates the asymptotic theory for a factor GARCH model. Sufficient conditions for strict stationarity, existence of certain moments, geometric ergodicity and B-mixing with exponential decay rates are established. These conditions allow for volatility spill-over and integrated...

The costs of searching for a job vacancy are typically associated with fric- tion that deters or delays employment of potentially productive individuals. We demonstrate that in a labor market with moral hazard where effort is non- contractible, job search costs play a positive role, whose effect...

We study multi-stage sequential all-pay contests (auctions) where heterogeneous contestants are privately informed about a parameter (ability) that affects their cost of effort. We characterize the Perfect Baysian equilibrium of these multi-stage sequential all-pay contests and analyze the...

A least squares estimation approach for the estimation of a GARCH (1,1) model is developed. The asymptotic properties of the estimator are studied given mild regularity conditions, which require only that the error term has a conditional moment of some order. We establish the consistency,...

A comprehensive empirical analysis of the return and conditional variance of Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) indices is performed using GARCH models. The prediction performance of these conditional changing variance models is compared to newer asymmetric GJR and APARCH models. We also quantify...

We draw on quantitative and descriptive data from Robert Campbell’s widely cited manual for prospective apprentices, The London Tradesman (1747), to demonstrate the responsiveness of apprenticeship in mid-eighteenth century London to market forces of supply and demand. We regress...