This paper studies managers’ use of accounting discretion to deter entry. Using state-level changes in branching regulation under the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act, I find geographically-constrained community banks increased their loan loss provisions to appear less profitable when faced with the threat of entry by competitors. Additional tests rule out alternative explanations that firm economics or regulators drove the increase. I complement my analyses with survey-based evidence. Findings from the survey confirm that banks prefer to locate in markets where incumbents have high profitability and low credit losses, and that banks use competitors’ financial statements to analyze competition.

I argue that there exists a coherent and relevant tradition in economic thought that I label “price theory.” I define it as neoclassical microeconomic analysis that reduces rich and often incompletely specified models into “prices” (approximately) sufficient to characterize solutions to simple allocative problems. I illustrate this definition by highlighting distinctively price theoretic approaches to prominent research practices (diagrams and problems sets) and substantive research topics (e.g. selection markets and media slant). I trace the origins of price theory from the early nineteenth century through its segregation into the Chicago School in the last quarter of the twentieth. I argue that price theory plays a valuable complementary role to two traditions, “reductionism” and “empiricism,” with which I contrast it and show how this contribution of price theory has fueled a resurgence in this style of research in fields ranging from market design to international trade. Approximations critical to price theory are less formally developed than tools used in other methodological traditions, suggesting a research agenda to clarify the accuracy and range of validity of these methods.(JEL B13, B21, B41, D00, D47, F10)

We assess changing patterns of migration and their association with labor outcomes for the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the NLSY. Although the long-distance migration rate is lower in the 1997 cohort, we find that migration fell mostly because return migration fell. We uncover little difference in patterns of selection into migration in the two cohorts, little difference in correlation between migration and labor market outcomes, and little evidence in either cohort of a positive labor market return to migration. Our findings suggest that reductions in geographic mobility do not explain the poor recent labor market performance of young adults.

Using the equity market liberalization of 23 emerging market countries between 1996 and 2006, we examine how the degree of competition for a firm's shares affects the price of information asymmetry. We find evidence of a significant decline in the pricing of information asymmetry as countries remove regulatory restrictions on foreign ownership. Our study provides novel evidence on the link between the degree of competitiveness of equity markets and the price of information asymmetry. The work also furthers our understanding of the economic consequences of foreign stock ownership.

ABSTRACT This study examines the effects of incentive contract framing on misreporting and entitlement. I conduct a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment, manipulating incentive contract framing (Bonus/Penalty) and the awareness of the opportunity to misreport (Before Effort/After Effort). I predict and find that (1) penalty contracts cause a higher rate and degree of misreporting, and (2) this greater misreporting occurs due to a greater sense of entitlement to the incentive funds. Collectively, this study's theory and results indicate that while penalty contracts can sometimes increase effort relative to bonus contracts, they also encourage greater dishonesty in reporting when that effort is not successful. Data Availability: Contact the author.

What are the origins and consequences of the state as a provider of public goods? We study public goods provision established through new laws in German cities during the 1500s. Cities that adopted the laws subsequently began to differentially produce and attract human capital and to grow faster. Legal change occurred where ideological competition introduced by the Protestant Reformation interacted with local politics. We study plagues that shifted local politics in a narrow period as sources of exogenous variation in public goods institutions, and find support for a causal interpretation of the relationship between legal change, human capital, and growth.

We construct Monetary Services (Divisia) Indexes at various levels of aggregation (the broadest of which is M4) from the late 1940s through 1967 employing methods designed to permit these historical series to be spliced to corresponding series currently published by the Center for Financial Stability (CFS), which begin in 1967. The annualized growth rate of our MSI M2 during 1947 to 1967 generally lies between the growth rates of conventional M1 and M2, while the growth rate of MSI M3 is below that of conventional M3 over the same period. Using spliced series, we find that the velocities of the MSI exhibit gradual upward trends from the late 1940s through 1978, with distinct upward shifts in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, while the velocity of conventional M3 trends downward between 1953 and 1982. Using a Fourier demand model, we find elastic substitution between M1 and the non-M1 components of MSI M3 up to 1967, but inelastic substitution between bank and thrift deposits.