We introduce a new micropayment scheme, suitable for certain kinds of transactions, that requires neither online transactions nor trusted hardware for either the payer or payee. Each payer is periodically issued certi ed credentials that encode the type of transactions and circumstances under which payment can be guaranteed. A risk management strategy, taking into account the payers' history, a...

We introduce a new micropayment scheme, suitable for certain kinds of transactions, that requires neither online transactions nor trusted hardware for either the payer or payee. Each payer is periodically issued certified credentials that encode the type of transactions and circumstances under which payment can be guaranteed. A risk management strategy, taking into account the payers’ history, ...

Gun rights activists in the United States frequently argue that the right to bear arms, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment, can help deter crime. Advocates of gun control usually respond that €rearm prevalence contributes positively to violent crime rates. In this paper, we provide quasi-experimental evidence that a positive and unexpected gun demand shock led to an increase in murder rates....

This paper extends Samuelson’s theory of optimal government purchases by accounting for the contribution of government purchases to macroeconomic stabilization. Using a matching model of the macroeconomy, we derive a sufficient-statistics formula for optimal government purchases. The formula implies that the deviation of optimal government purchases from the Samuelson level is proportional to t...

This paper is about the effectiveness of qualitative easing; a government policy that is designed to mitigate risk through central bank purchases of privately held risky assets and their replacement by government debt, with a return that is guaranteed by the taxpayer. Policies of this kind have recently been carried out by national central banks, backed by implicit guarantees from national trea...

We examine the effect of labor income and health uncertainty on the optimal choices of policyholders with Guaranteed Minimum Death Benefits embedded in Variable Annuities. These choices are determined in the context of a utility-based life cycle model including bequest motives and optimal term life purchases. We then determine riskneutral prices from the perspective of the issuing financial ins...

Results: Before the WIC revisions, when no bread or rice was provided through WIC, white bread dominated bread purchases among WIC households (78% of volume), and almost all rice purchased was white (94%). As a result of theWIC revisions, the share of 100% whole-grain bread in total bread purchases tripled (from 8% to 24%), replacing purchases of white bread; the share of brown rice rose to 30%...

In the late 1980s, grain-hauling railroads began offering alternatives that have made shipping decisions more strategic. Shippers now confront alternatives ranging from nearby and unguaranteed ordering to various durations of forward and guaranteed shipment. Each has varying penalties for cancellation and payments from the railroad for nonperformance, and differing risks and payoffs. Because of...

Motivated by recent increases in network traffic, we propose a decentralized network edge-based solution to peakhour broadband congestion that incentivizes users to moderate their bandwidth demands to their actual needs. Our solution is centered on smart home gateways that allocate bandwidth in a two-level hierarchy: first, a gateway purchases guaranteed bandwidth from the Internet Service Prov...