We provide an incomplete information bargaining framework that captures the effects of differential bargaining power in markets with multiple buyers and multiple suppliers. The market is modeled as a mechanism that maximizes the expected weighted welfare of the firms, subject to the constraints of incentive compatibility, individual rationality, and no deficit. We show that, in this model, there is no basis for the presumption that vertical integration increases equally weighted social surplus, while it is possible that horizontal mergers that appropriately change bargaining weights increase social surplus. Moreover, efficient bargaining implies that in equilibrium noncontractible investments are efficient.

Employment may be important to well-being for reasons beyond its role as an income source. This paper presents a causal estimate of the psychosocial value of employment in refugee camps in Bangladesh. We involve 745 individuals in a field experiment with three arms: a control arm, a weekly cash arm, and an employment arm of equal value. Employment raises psychosocial well-being substantially more than cash alone, and 66 percent of the employed are willing to forgo cash payments to continue working temporarily for free. Despite material poverty, those in our context both experience and recognize a nonmonetary, psychosocial value to employment.

This paper develops a satellite account for the US health sector and measures productivity growth in health care for the elderly population between 1999 and 2012. We measure the change in medical spending and health outcomes for a comprehensive set of 80 conditions. Medical care has positive productivity growth over the time period, with aggregate productivity growth of 1.5% per year. However, there is significant heterogeneity in productivity growth. Care for cardiovascular disease has had very high productivity growth. In contrast, care for people with musculoskeletal conditions has been costly but has not led to improved outcomes.