Who Holds Employer Stock?
This paper examines the effect of race in employer stock levels in pension accounts and reported risk preference as an indicator of company stock holdings.
Economics
Price differentials among hospitals in Massachusetts
Health care in Massachusetts ranks exceptionally well but suffers from high hospital costs. This study examines why prices for similar services vary so much among Massachusetts hospitals.
Price theory and the U.S. Congress
This paper aims to determine whether discrimination theory or human capital theory better explains the historical underrepresentation of women in Congress.
Healthcare Economics in Action
Behavioral economists challenge the assumption that humans are economically rational consumers. When faced with complicated situations (such as navigating the health insurance system) or uncertainty (such as not knowing whether one will become sick in the future), people do not always make the optimal decisions that traditional economic theory assumes.
The NBA soft cap and luxury tax
This paper evaluates the impact of the National Basketball Association (NBA)’s soft salary cap and luxury tax system, and showed that talent and payroll are linked within the league, causing unbalanced team competitiveness.
Methods of detecting tacit collusion in FCC spectrum auctions
An analysis of methods for detecting tacit collusion in FCC spectrum auctions.
Victory by association: Using electronic prediction markets to measure coattail effects
In this paper, we study the magnitude of coattail effects in the 2008 election, or the impact of the presidential election on congressional elections. We utilize data from electronic prediction markets to measure these effects.
Social stress and scapegoatism: An economic model
This paper analyzes scapegoatism from the perspective of the individual members of a social network, their social utilities, and the decisions that result. Using basic psychological descriptions of the effects of a scapegoat event on the members of a social group, this paper formalizes an economic model to describe this dynamic social process. Furthermore, the model’s results lead to several general conclusions about the factors that increase the likelihood of scapegoat events.
The role of the informal sector in equitable water distribution
The paper probes this under-researched question by constructing a household water demand model with household-level data gathered during a field survey in July and August 2009 of 265 households in the Emir Ali neighborhood of Ayn al-Basha, Jordan.