Our analysis melds two traditional approaches to promoting quality. The first is restoring the stock of quality. The second is curbing its flow of deterioration. Although both approaches are widely used in real world settings, analytic models have tended to focus on one strategy or the other. We...

This article describes the anatomy of health insurance. It begins by considering the optimal design of health insurance policies. Such policies must make tradeoffs appropriately between risk sharing on the one hand and agency problems such as moral hazard (the incentive of people to seek more...

Our survey results demonstrate that targeted screening of airline passengers raises conflicting concerns of efficiency and equity. Support for profiling increases if there is a substantial reduction in avoided delays to other passengers. The time cost and benefit components of targeting affect...

We analyze the risk level chosen by agents that have private information regarding their quality. We show that even risk-neutral agents will choose risk strategically to enhance their reputation in the market, in a manner determined by the risk choices of other agents. Our model employs the...

Generic drug utilization has risen dramatically, from 19% of scrips in 1984 to 47% in 2001, thus bringing significant direct dollar savings. Generic drug use may also yield indirect savings if it lowers the average price of those brand-name drugs that are still purchased. Prior work indicates -...

The issue of dynamic efficiency is central to analyses of capital accumulation and economic growth. Yet the question of what operating characteristics of an economy subject to productivity shocks should be examined to determine whether or not it is efficient has not been resolved. This paper...

One The Control and Performance of State-Owned Enterprises -- Comments -- Two The Performance and Management of United States Federal Government Corporations -- Comments -- Three Privatization at the State and Local Level -- Comments -- Four Privatization in Britain -- Comments -- A Narrative:...

The initial hope for climate science was that an improved understanding of what the future might bring would lead to appropriate public policies and effective international climate agreements. Even if that hope is not realized, as now seems likely, scientific advances leading to a more refined...