Vassar Scholarship

It is commonly believed that firms prefer layoffs to worksharing, in part, because layoffs economize on fringe benefit costs. We find that when labor markets are characterized by optimal implicit contracts, layoffs will never occur in equilibrium, regardless of the...

This paper is inspired by the literal intersection of two walking bodies, the hiker and the migrant, in the "Most Dangerous Park In America." In Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, located on the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, while the National...

The traditional classroom presentation of international macroeconomic issues obscures the link between budget deficits, exchange rates, and the trade deficit. The article offers a simple supply and demand framework to clarify the role of budget deficits in creating trade deficits...

Implicit contract models of labor market equilibrium under work sharing and layoffs are constructed to examine several common explanations for the observed market bias in favor of layoffs. We first establish the optimality of work sharing in the absence of...

This chapter provides a selective review of the literature on trust and the law. We highlight the psychological and game theoretic mechanisms underpinning the role of trust in relationships with incomplete contracts. We also discuss evidence on whether behavioral trust...