Refunds are modelled as a market response to asymmetric information. A firm's choice of product reliability is private information, and not verifiable. Firms compete by offering price-refund contracts; consumers draw inferences about quality from the observed contracts. In equilibrium, quality...

Refunds are modeled as a competitive market response to asymmetric information. Firms have private information on their choice of product quality, and compete by offering pricerefund contracts. Consumers who care about quality draw inferences about the quality offered by the various firms from...

A dynamic model of intergovernmental competition for a large plant is presented, when local productivity is uncertain. One firm determines the location of its plant in each period by conducting an auction, soliciting bids from local governments. Equilibrium subsidies from the local governments...

The economics of producing and consuming children is an immensely important but largely neglected area. The authors model the allocation of parents' time between market production and childcare, a choice driven by both consumption and investment motives. They identify two externalities in the...

From Africa through North America to Asia, anthropologists have found societies with formalized age-group systems. In these societies, social and economic relations between individuals are regulated by well-established rules governing transitions through the lifecycle. In this paper we detail...