We estimate the impact of the Mexican conditional cash transfer program, Progresa, on the time mothers and older sisters spend taking care of children younger than 3. We exploit the random allocation of the program and heterogeneity in household composition for identification, and apply the...

Most of the empirical tests reject the complete markets hypothesis, but have serious methodological problems concerning the identification of preferences, the direction of the tests and their power. We study the risk sharing and consumption insurance achieved by rural households from three...

We develop and estimate a model of dynamic interactions in which commitment is limited and contracts are incomplete to explain the patterns of income and consumption growth in village economies of less developed countries. Households can insure each other through both formal contracts and...

The production contracts between integrator firms (principals) and independent growers (agents) in most agricultural settings are governed by short term contracts. Recently, some firms converted their short-term into long-term contracts. This change in contract duration represents a natural...

Cross-country variability in regulatory frameworks, industrial policy, physician/pharmacy autonomy, brand/generic distinctions, and in the practice of medicine contributes to ambiguous interpretations of pharmaceutical cost comparisons. Here we report cross-country comparisons that: (i) focus on...

Food purchases differ substantially across countries. We use detailed household level data from the US, France and the UK to (i) document these differences; (ii) esti- mate a demand system for food and nutrients, and (iii) simulate counterfactual choices if households faced prices and...

How a cost shock is passed through to final consumer prices may relate to nominal price stickiness and rigidities, the existence of nonadjustable cost components, strategic markup adjustments, or other contract terms along the supply distribution chain. This paper presents a simple framework to...

This paper quantifies the relationship between market size and innovation in the pharmaceutical industry using improved, and newer, methods and data. We find positive significant elasticities of innovation to expected market size with a point estimate under our preferred specification of 0.23....

Using an exhaustive database on academic publications in mathematics, we study the patterns of productivity by world mathematicians over the period 1984-2006. We uncover some surprising facts, such as the absence of age related decline in productivity and the relative symmetry of international...