Vassar Scholarship

We develop a classroom experiment on exchange rate determination appropriate for undergraduate courses in macroeconomics and international economics. Students represent citizens from different countries and need to obtain currency to purchase goods. By participating in a sealed bid auction to...

This paper attempts to ascertain which of the convergence hypotheses – absolute, conditional, or club – best describes the economic development of the U.S. states since 1950. We use regression tree analysis to identify convergence clubs among the states and...

This paper proposes a new instrument for institutional quality—the salary of colonial governors—to investigate whether variations in the quality of British colonial rule continue to have an impact on the economic performance of former colonies. Governors' salaries provide a good...

There are numerous examples of assets with identical payout streams being priced differently. These violations of the law of one price result from two factors. First, investors have heterogeneous asset valuations so that if two groups of investors trade in...

There are numerous examples of assets with identical payout streams being priced differently. These violations of the law of one price result from two factors. First, investors have heterogeneous asset valuations so that if two groups of investors trade in...

This paper analyzes the feasibility of an international tax on currency transaction, also known as "Tobin Tax", from an economic and juridical point of view. The claim that such a tax would curb short term speculators, thus stabilizing the foreign...

This paper analyzes the feasibility of an international tax on currency transaction, also known as "Tobin Tax", from an economic and juridical point of view. The claim that such a tax would curb short term speculators, thus stabilizing the foreign...

In this paper I present a real options model of patent litigation when patents are not perfectly enforceable. I consider both finite horizon and infinite horizon models. The theoretical results demonstrate that patent value depends not only on the underlying...

I present a model that can transform discounts on closed-end mutual funds into a measure of investor sentiment about the ability of fund managers to beat the market. This measure of sentiment varies positively with capital flows into actively managed...