A central problem in applied empirical work is to separate out the patterns in the data that are due to poor production of the data, such as e.g. non-response and measurement errors, from the patterns attributable to the economic phenomena studied. This paper interprets this inference problem as...

In a complex economy, production is vertical and crosses jurisdictional lines. Goods are often produced by a global or national firm upstream and improved or distributed by local firms downstream. In this context, heightened products liability may have unintended consequences for consumer...

In a complex economy, production is vertical and crosses jurisdictional lines. Goods are often produced by a global or national firm upstream and improved or distributed by local firms downstream. In this context, heightened products liability may have unintended consequences for consumer...

In this paper I explore estimation of treatment response in blinded clinical trials when there exist placebo effects, i.e., when health outcomes are a function of not just the physiological effects of treatment, but also beliefs about treatment efficacy and treatment state. First, I argue that...

In this paper I criticize the methodology of existing studies that purport to find evidence of placebo effects in medical trials. Among other things, because these studies fail to define and properly model placebo effects, it is hard to determine the power of their results. I address the problem...