This dissertation explores the nature and scope of vertical coordination in the U.S. beef industry. From the perspective of the incomplete contract theory of the industrial organization literature, this dissertation first provides a theoretical economic explanation for the traditional and...

Vertical coordination through contracts between farmers and other stages of the agro food chain have been of growing importance in US agriculture. Production contract arrangements between contractors and individual growers have been one of the major vehicles of this emerging system of vertical...

This study is an enquiry about the role that service quality, asymmetric information, scope of regulation and regulator's preferences play in the regulation of monopolies, with an application to the case of the Chilean electricity distribution industry. In Chapter 1, I present the problem of...

This essay discusses the role of the World Bank (hereafter, the Bank) in the generation and prevention of poverty. Although major reference is made to the activities and structure of the Bank, it is believed that the points made, apply with little or no modification to many international...