State-sponsored lotteries are a lucrative source of revenue. Despite their low payout rates, lotteries are extremely popular, particularly among low-income citizens. State officials laud the benefits of lottery proceeds and promote the fun and excitement of participation. This entertainment...

As with other technologies, adoption of Bt seed requires technology specific knowledge. Growing secondary pest populations have slowly eroded the benefits of Bt technology in China. We illustrate the effects of introducing Bt technology among farmers with an imperfect knowledge of secondary pest...

Consumer resistance is a key barrier to the diffusion of genetically modified foods (GMFs). Several studies have shown that consumers in general have a negative attitude toward GMFs. Through analysis of a survey conducted in Israel, we find consumer attitudes toward GMFs to be context specific,...

A general theory of cross-subsidization due to inframarginal support is developed. Two sources of output distortion are identified: "exit deterrence" and "extramarginal output." Some firms would not be in business without the subsidy. Cost savings due to declining average costs are always...

Economists frequently focus on correlations between wealth and risk preferences but rarely observe the probabilities needed to test this relationship empirically. These unobserved probabilities are typically estimated via profit or production functions conditioned on wealth correlates, which may...

A framework is developed to analyze the effects of a biofuel consumer tax exemption and the interaction effects with a price contingent farm subsidy. Ethanol prices rise above the gasoline price by the amount of the tax credit. Corn farmers gain directly while gasoline consumers only gain from...

We propose an analytical distinction between standard risk aversion based on the valuation of a single gamble and marginal risk aversion based on the change in valuation between two gambles. We measure marginal risk aversion in two dimensions—mean and variance. Data from a field experiment is...