The authors examine the effects that famine relief efforts (food aid) can have in regions undergoing civil war. In the model, warlords seize a fraction of all aid entering the region. How much they can loot affects their choice of army size; therefore the manner in which aid is delivered...

The food aid curse arises because humanitarian aid agencies that are devoted to save lives cannot commit not to intervene in case of man-made famines. We propose a solution to this curse in models of agrarian economies with kleptocratic governments.

This paper presents a theoretical model of conflict between two players, with intervention by a peacekeeping force. Peacekeepers are treated as a military contingent, capable of taking sides, acting as a third (independent) side in the war, or remaining inactive, depending on circumstances. This...

In this paper we compare the welfare effects of unemployment insurance (UI) with an universal basic income (UBI) system in an economy with idiosyncratic shocks to employment. Both policies provide a safety net in the face of idiosyncratic shocks. While the unemployment insurance program should...

I analyze a market in which a price-taking buyer buys a variable-quality good from a population of sellers, contrasting the case where quality is a seller's private information to that where it is public information. Average quality traded under private information can be either higher (quality...

This paper presents a model in which a good is made up of two parts, and each part asts one or two periods, with known probabilities. The analysis includes consumer decisions regarding part replacement, as well as profit maximization under monopoly and oligipoly. It is found that firms have...

This paper deals with volume of trade and distribution of surplus in markets subject to adverse selection. The benchmark case -- a variation of Akerlof's lemons model -- is that of a market where two qualities of a good are offered, in proportions such that, if a single price is required to...