Neoclassical analysis of the labor market and its institutions. A systematic development of the theory of labor supply, labor demand, and human capital. Topics discussed also include wage and employment determination, turnover, search, immigration, unemployment, equalizing differences, and...

The essays of this dissertation examine the determinants of cross-border flows, in the form of immigrants and foreign aid, as well as the impact of those flows on receiving markets. The first essay finds that the composition of immigrant inflows into local markets is a significant determinant of...

In the U.S., households participate in two very different types of credit markets. Personal lending is characterized by continuous risk-based pricing in which lenders offer households a continuous distribution of borrowing possibilities based on estimates of their creditworthiness. This...

Medicare has recently experienced the largest expansion of benefits since its in- ception: the inclusion of prescription drug coverage under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003. The policy debate has mainly focused on estimating the cost of implementing the...

Over the last two decades, bank credit has evolved from the traditional relationship banking model to an originate-to-distribute model where banks can originate loans, earn their fee, and then sell them off to investors who desire such exposures. We show that the borrowers whose loans are sold...

Two complementary sources of information are studied in a multiperiod agency model. One is an accounting source which partially but credibly conveys the agent’s private information through accounting recognition. The other is an unverified communication by the agent (i.e., a self-report). In a...

Achieving high compliance rates in incentive-based agri-environmental schemes is animportant issue. This paper explores the use of a mixed penalty-reward approach underheterogeneous compliance costs. Specifically, we examine the use of a “compliancereward” under asymmetric information and...

Theoretical research argues that convertible bonds mitigate the contracting costs of moral hazard, adverseselection, and financial distress. Using firm-specific and macroeconomic factors of the contracting costs,we examine the extent to which they impact the likelihood of issuance and the...

We analyze whether fluctuation in economy-wide factors cause time-series variation in thecontracting costs of moral hazard, adverse selection, and financial distress, and so create windows ofopportunity for firms to issue debt. Using the announcement period abnormal returns as one measure of...

Prior literature suggests two competing theories regarding the role of venture capitalists (VCs) in their portfolio companies. The VC monitoring hypothesis argues that VCs effectively resolve the managerial agency problem through close monitoring and restraining managers' earnings management...