Wharton School of Business

In Las Vegas, Macau, and Singapore, the gambling industries have begun as risky bets challenging social norms, rule of law, and cultural values. Las Vegas, the world's first major gambling center, took shape as a carefree stopping point for 19th century pioneers heading West.

Poster Presentation: Finding Center: Understanding Humanitarian Aid Worker Wellbeing, Stress, and Coping Strategies in Haiti using PESM

Initial preliminary study of humanitarian aid workers and international development practitioners in Port-au-Prince, Haiti reveal that this population copes with enormous stressors such as organizational cultures' promotion of "overworking," cross cultural work-related challenges (differing work styles, lack of language capacity, e.g.), a felt sense of isolation/lack of integration in Haitian culture, and a perceived sense of overwhelming need and suffering in Haitian community, among other factors. In addition, a lack of wellbeing promoting/self-care programs exist both internally in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as externally in the Port-au-Prince region. Thematic analysis indicates that thriving, including stress reduction, is predominantly achieved through structured rest and relaxation (R&R) periods and vacation allowances at the organizational level. At the personal level, this population seems to cope with stress through meaningful connections within social networks (professional and personal), exercise, time in nature, proactive efforts to improve unsatisfying conditions, a felt sense of working life as meaningful, a felt sense of competence, and continuing efforts to maintain personal equilibrium.

We use an extended Barro-Becker model of endogenous fertility, in which parents are heterogeneous in their labor productivity, to study the efficient degree of consumption inequality in the long run. In our environment a utilitarian planner allows for consumption inequality even when labor productivity is public information. We show that adding private information does not alter this result. We also show that the informationally constrained optimal insurance contract has a resetting property-whenever a family line experiences the highest shock, the continuation utility of each child is reset to a (high) level that is independent of history. This implies that there is a non-trivial, stationary distribution over continuation utilities and there is no mass at misery. The novelty of our approach is that the no-immiseration result is achieved without requiring that the objectives of the planner and the private agents disagree. Because there is no discrepancy between planner and private agents' objectives, the policy implications for implementation of the efficient allocation differ from previous results in the literature. Two examples of these are: 1) estate taxes are positive and 2) there are positive taxes on family size. . We are indebted to Alice Schoonbroodt for all of her helpful comments and suggestions at various stages of this project. We would also like to thank V.V. Chari, Chris Phelan, and Ariel Zetlin-Jones for comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis or the Federal Reserve System.

Abstract: We examine the quantitative importance of financial market shocks in accounting for business cycle fluctuations. We emphasize the role financial markets play in reallocating funds from cash-rich, low productivity firms to cash-poor, high productivity firms. We use evidence on financial flows to analyze the importance of this role of financial markets. This evidence shows that in the aggregate, funds available to firms internally are more than adequate to finance investment.

ABSTRACT Banks and financial intermediaries that originate loans often sell some of these loans or securitize them in secondary loan markets and hold on to others. New issuances in such secondary markets collapse abruptly on occasion, typically when collateral values used to secure the underlying loans fall. These collapses are viewed by policymakers as signs that the market is not functioning efficiently.

Abstract We analyze the extent to which reputational concerns may overcome moral hazard problems in credit markets. In such markets, debt contracts are common, and with loan contracts, borrowers have incentives to take on high levels of risk if lenders cannot observe the types of projects in which borrowers invest funds. If borrowers intend to access credit markets repeatedly, they have incentives to acquire reputations for taking on low levels of risk.

Shocks to financial market activity seem to matter for real economic activity. Two recent recessions in the United States have been accompanied by downward shocks to the level of activity in financial markets. The financial crisis of 2007 is a stark example since a relatively high decrease in output coincided with a collapse in asset backed securities markets, runs on money market funds and near zero yield on treasury funds.

Abstract We use a Barro-Becker model of endogenous fertility, in which parents are subject to idiosyncratic shocks that are private information (either to labor productivity or taste for leisure), to study the efficient degree of consumption inequality in the long run. The planner uses the trade off between family size and future consumption and leisure, to provide incentives for workers to reveal their shocks. We show that in this environment, the optimal dynamic contract no longer features immiseration in consumption.

Abstract: We use a Barro-Becker model of endogenous fertility, in which parents are subject to idiosyncratic shocks that are private information (either to labor productivity or taste for leisure), to study the efficient degree of consumption inequality in the long run. The planner uses the trade off between family size and future consumption and leisure, in addition to the usual variables, to provide incentives for workers to reveal their shocks.

In Chapter 1, we focus on optimal tax policies in environments with idiosyncratic capital income risk. We develop a model in which entrepreneurs are subject to idiosyncratic shocks to their capital income. Shocks to capital income have two components: 1) a component that is known to the entrepreneur at the time of investment, 2) a residual component that is realized after investment. This creates two types of incentive problems: a hidden type problem and a hidden action problem.