When I was a graduate student in economics at Harvard, I had the privilege of serving as
rapporteur for a faculty seminar in the thennew Kennedy School of Government. Among …

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses job market signaling. The term market signaling
is not exactly a part of the well-defined, technical vocabulary of the economist. The chapter …

This paper has a simply stated goal. It is to investigate the effects offixed costs and
monopolistic competition on the selection ofproducts and product characteristics in a set …

In many markets, firms compete over time by expending resources with the purpose of
reducing their costs. Sometimes the cost-reducing investments operate directly on costs. In …

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses some intricacies and difficulties that arise in the
real world operation of contingent claims markets. Insurance contracts are the most readily …

With the nations of the world becoming more interdependent, it is imperative to take
international influences into account in understanding the organization of industry within a …

This paper is concerned with pollution control when the regulators are uncertain about firms'
cleanup costs. Under these circumstances, the regulatory authority can reduce expected …

This paper is concerned with products that have probabilistic characteristics like safety and
durability, with the sources of failure in markets where such products are sold, and with …

One of the functions of the market sys-tem is to select the commodities that are produced
and sold. This process is variously referred to as product differentia-tion, product selection …

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011 With the British Industrial Revolution,
part of the world's population started to experience extraordinary economic growth—leading …