The Economist magazine has been publishing the Big Mac Index using it as a rule of thumb to determine the over- or under-valuation of international currencies based on the theory of Purchasing Power Parity since 1986. According to the theory, using the Big Mac as a tradable single-good basket,...

It is well-known that there exist gender differentials in the labor market in the US and during different stages of business cycles in the US, men, and women in the labor market react differently. In this paper, we theoretically frame the labor market dynamics under a Diamond-Mortensen...

Using the Big Mac Index, we offer a simple measure to study the real income inequali-ty. We provide a multidimensional real income inequality analysis by exploring the Coefficient of Variation and the Big Mac Affordability of households across all in-come deciles of 28 countries for years 2000...

Given the complexity of interaction between inflation and inequality, we examine whether the impact of inflation on inequality differs among distinct levels of income inequality across the US states. Results reveal that there is a negative contemporaneous effect of inflation on the inequality...

In this paper, we study the determinants of patent quality and volume of patent applications when inventors care about perceived patent quality. We analyze the effects of various policy reforms, specifically, a proposal to establish a two-tiered patent system. In the two-tiered system,...

To determine patentability, inventions are evaluated in light of existing prior art. Innovators have a duty to disclose any prior art that they are aware of, but have no obligation to search. We study innovators' incentives to search for prior art, their search intensities and the timing. We...