In developing countries, consumers can buy many goods either in formal markets or in informal markets and decide where to purchase based on the product's price and anticipated quality. We assume consumers cannot assess quality prior to purchase and cannot, at reasonable cost, identify who...

In markets for many fruits, vegetables, and an increasing number of imported goods, consumers cannot discern the quality of a product prior to purchase and can never identify its producer. Producing high-quality, safe goods is costly for a firm and raises the collective reputation for quality...

In markets for many fruits, vegetables, and an increasing number of imported goods, consumers cannot discern the quality of a product prior to purchase and can never identify its producer. Producing high-quality, safe goods is costly for a firm and raises the collective reputation for quality...

In developing countries, consumers can buy many goods from either the formal sector or the informal sector and choose the sector to patronize based on the product's price there and anticipated quality. We assume that firms can produce in either sector and can adjust quality at a cost. In the...

In developing countries, consumers can buy many goods either in formal markets or in informal markets and decide where to purchase based on the product's price and anticipated quality. We assume consumers cannot assess quality prior to purchase and cannot, at reasonable cost, identify who...

In markets for fruits, vegetables, and many imported goods, consumers cannot discern quality prior to purchase and can never identify the producer. Producing high-quality, safe goods is costly and raises the "collective reputation" for quality shared with rival firms. Minimum quality standards...

We examine the characteristics of the individuals who become entrepreneurs when local opportunities arise. We identify local demand shocks by linking fluctuations in global commodity prices to municipality-level agricultural endowments in Brazil. We find that the firm creation response is mostly...

This paper builds a real-options model of the firm with stochastic volatility to shed new light on the value premium, financial distress, and credit spread puzzles. Since the equity of growth firms and financially distressed firms have embedded options, such securities hedge against volatility...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) established health insurance marketplaces where consumers can buy individual coverage. Leveraging novel credit card and bank account micro-data, we identify new enrollees in the California marketplace and measure their health spending and premium payments. Following...

New firm formation is a critical driver of job creation, and an important contributor to the responsiveness of the economy to aggregate shocks. In this paper we examine the characteristics of the individuals who become entrepreneurs when local opportunities arise due to an increase in local...