Are location-specific factors important for understanding firms’ heterogeneities? We examine prices and quality metrics for Japanese cars at wholesale auctions, comparing otherwise identical cars assembled in the United States versus Japan. We find similar values regardless of country of assembly. These results indicate that Japanese automakers in general have successfully transferred their practices to their U.S. transplants and that there is no inherent limitation to high-quality automobile production in the United States. Deeper analysis of patterns for Toyota cars, complemented by historical analysis, suggests that although it is possible to transfer standards, quality convergence can require conscious effort and not just cumulative production.

Are attitudes about morally controversial (and often prohibited) market transactions affected by information about their costs and benefits? We address this question for the case of payments for human organs. We find in a survey experiment with US residents (N=3,417) that providing information on the potential efficiency benefits of a regulated price mechanism for organs significantly increased support for payments from a baseline of 52 percent to 71 percent. The survey was devised to minimize social desirability biases in responses, and additional analyses validate the interpretation that subjects were reflecting on the case-specific details provided, rather than just reacting to any information.