The present paper tests the empirical link between a firm's financial structure and its entry decision in the US airline industry. The analysis of airline data from the top 500 airport-pairs during the period 1993-2003 shows that financially distressed air carriers with high leverage and low...

The increased importance of fragmentation in world trade has created an interest among trade economists to explain the determinants of trade in intermediate goods. A substantial part of trade in intermediates between the US and OECD countries takes the form of intra-industry (IIT). I have...

This dissertation includes three essays that consider the role of quality variation within agricultural production when consumers are heterogeneous in their preferences for quality. The first essay, 'The Welfare Benefits of USDA Beef Quality Certification Programs,' estimates the consumer...

My dissertation is titled 'Creating the Hot Hand Effect with a Grand Prize.' It develops a theory of how the addition of a grand prize for performance in a sequence of tournaments affects agents' effort and participation decisions. The theory's predictions are empirically tested with data from...

I examine properties of worker behavior under promotion tournaments, and discuss their implications for the design of promotion tournaments. Given their tasks, workers will decide how much effort they exert. In addition to this decision-making, they have the opportunity to decide their...