Damaged exports: Dynamics and limits of governance reform in Southeast Asia

Governance reform is the main policy for a number of international and domestic aid agencies. Under the rubric of governance reform are diverse programs ranging from those for anti‐corruption to those for civil society promotion programs. Although these programs have had limited success, governance programs are continually being promoted and implemented byinternational organizations and political forces in developing, newly industrialized states. Why? One reason for this persistence is that these programs—despite failing in their erstwhile objectives—nevertheless constitute a shift in modes through which power is exercised. These programs often create new modalities of political rule, which form the basis of new state strategies. This paper draws particular attention to the importance of governance programs in nurturing new forms of political rule through a process of depoliticization.     

Robust firm pricing with panel data

Firms often have imperfect information about demand for their products. We develop an integrated econometric and theoretical framework to model firm demand assessment and subsequent pricing decisions with limited information. We introduce a panel data discrete choice model whose realistic assumptions about consumer behavior deliver partially identified preferences and thus generate ambiguity in the firm pricing problem. We use the minimax-regret criterion as a decision-making rule for firms facing this ambiguity. We illustrate the framework’s benefits relative to the most common discrete choice analysis approach through simulations and empirical examples with field data.     

Regulation and Contract Design: The Impact of Relationship Specific Investment

A primary explanation for variation in contract structure is the extent to which contracting parties make investments specific to their transaction. Investment decisions are typically endogenous in contract choice, however, frustrating attempts at causal verification. I analyze the impact of a major environmental regulation, the Clean Air Act Amendment of 1990, on coal procurement strategies of U.S. utilities. I exploit a key feature of the Amendment's design to define a difference‐in‐difference model that is arguably less susceptible to endogeneity concerns. I find wide support for the theoretical prediction: reduced specificity leads to shorter length, fixed price contracts.     

Countercyclical pricing: A consumer heterogeneity explanation

We show that a seasonal good could be priced countercyclically due to the heterogeneous seasonal shifts in consumer valuations. We provide empirical support for our explanation based on two product categories (canned soup and tuna) studied in the literature.