This thesis is a collection of three essays on mechanism design. In Chapter 1, we consider a general Informed Principal Problem in the context of procurement. Both the potential suppliers and the buyer hold some private information: each supplier knows his cost of production, the buyer knows how...

This thesis is a collection of essays that uses theoretical and experimental methods to explore institutional persistence, contract structure, and authority. Chapter One studies the informational and efficiency properties of institutions that form to reduce moral hazard. While in the short run...

This dissertation consists of three essays on international trade and investment. In the first essay, I study how cross-country differences in labor market institutions shape the pattern of international trade with a focus on workers' skill acquisition. I develop an open-economy model in which...

This thesis consists of three separate essays related to international economics and labor markets. The first essay, with Francisco Gallego, looks at sudden stops, a main feature of developing countries in the last decades, and their effects on these countries. Using sector-level data on job...

This dissertation consists of three papers that explore the links between corporate finance and corporate pension policy. The first chapter exploits the funding rules for defined benefit pension plans in order to identify the dependence of corporate investment on internal financial resources....

This dissertation is a collection of three essays exploring the impact of incentives on participation in public education and health programs. The first two essays analyze the demand for Special Education (a program for disabled children) in the U.S., while the third essay explores the demand...

This dissertation consists of three essays in empirical labor and health economics. The first chapter examines how the amount of time devoted to a leisure activity varies in response to temporary changes in the price of that activity. Specifically, I estimate the effect of changes in expected...

This dissertation is composed of three chapters. The first demonstrates that natural gas violates many of the simplifying assumptions frequently used in modeling its behavior. Careful analysis of futures contracts written on gas suggests that gas prices are seasonal while returns are...

In Chapter 1, I propose a model in which consumers base their purchasing decisions upon their recollections of the product quality, and in which firms can use persuasive advertising in order to change these recollections. Although consumers are aware that such advertising has occurred and take...

This dissertation is a collection of three empirical essays in industrial organization using data from an anonymous retailer. All these chapters examine some facet of consumer behavior. The first chapter estimates demand for store and national brand over-the-counter pain relievers. There is...