We examine racial and ethnic differences in computer ownership and Internet usage using data from a survey conducted by the Nomura Research Institute in 2000, supplemented with data from the August 2000 Current Population Survey. We focus on online shopping because few studies have examined racial and ethnic differences in ecommerce. The results indicate that Blacks and Hispanics are less likel...

This paper studies the role of overconfidence in political behavior. We posit a simple model of overconfidence in beliefs. The model predicts that overconfidence leads to ideological extremeness, increased voter turnout, and increased strength of partisan identification. Moreover, the model makes many nuanced predictions about the patterns of ideology in society, and over a person’s lifetime. W...

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This thesis examines three topics. The first chapter, entitled "Persistent Effects of Peru's Mining Mita" utilizes regression discontinuity to examine the long-run impacts of the mita, an extensive forced mining labor system in effect in Peru and Bolivia between 1573 and 1812. Results indicate that a mita effect lowers household consumption by around 25% and increases the prevalence of stunted ...

This paper characterizes the efficient sequential equilibrium when a government uses indirect control to exert its authority. We develop a dynamic principal-agent model in which a principal (a government) delegates the prevention of a disturbance—such as riots, protests, terrorism, crime, or tax evasion—to an agent who has an advantage in accomplishing this task. Our setting is a standard dynam...

How did India make the transition from an economic laggard to one of the fastest growing economies in the world? India’s sluggish economic growth has been pejoratively described as the “Hindu rate of growth”. Industrial modernization and the green revolution could muster a mere 3.4% average annual rate of growth between 1956 and 1974, at a time when many economies of Asia had boomed. Economic g...

The Icelandic banking crisis provides a useful example of how the global economic downturn transformed into a domestic crisis and then transformed again into an international conflict. Rather than a strict economic analysis, discussion around the economic causes and potential cures surrounding the Icelandic banking crisis have been framed in terms of ethics. The analysis shows that ethical para...

Compelling evidence suggests that the United States lags behind other developed nations in the health of its population and the performance of its health care system, partly as a result of a decades-long decline in primary care. This paper outlines the political, economic, policy, and institutional factors behind this decline. A large-scale, multifaceted effort--a new Charter for Primary Care--...

Discussions about aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations in Canada have stressed the need to recognize “aboriginal customary law” in self-government arrangements. It is maintained that many aspects of “native law” differ radically from the legal systems that emerged in European countries, and so imposing Canadian conceptions of law on aboriginal communities is an obstacle to native self-determinat...