This dissertation analyzes problems related to barriers to innovation. In the first chapter, “Delegation and Learning”, I study an agency problem which is common in many contexts involving financing of innovation. Consider the example of an entrepreneur, who has an idea but not the money to implement it, and an investor, who has the money but not the idea. In such a case, how should a financial contract between the investor and the entrepreneur look like? How much money should the investor provide the entrepreneur? How should the surplus be divided between them in case the idea turns out to be profitable? There are certain common elements in situations such as these. First, there is an element of learning. This is because initially it is unknown if the idea is profitable or not and hence the idea has to be tried out in the market and both the investor and entrepreneur learn about the profitability of the idea from observing market outcomes. Second, there is an element of delegation in the above situation. This is because decision rights regarding where and when should the idea be tried out is typically in the hands of the entrepreneur and he knows his idea better than the investor. Finally, the preferences of the investor and the entrepreneur might not be aligned. For instance, the investor may receive private benefits, monetary or reputational, from launching products even when these are not profitable. In such a case, how should a contract that incentivizes the entrepreneur to act in the investor’s interest look like? To study these issues, I develop a model in which a principal contracts with an agent whose ability is uncertain. Ability is learnt from the agent’s performance in projects that the principal finances over time. Success however also depends on the quality of the project at hand, and quality is privately observed by the agent who is biased towards implementation. I characterize the optimal sequence of rewards in a relationship that tolerates an endogenously determined finite number of failures and incentivizes the agent to implement only good projects by specifying rewards for success as a function of past failures. The fact that success becomes less likely over time suggests that rewards for success should increase with past failures. However, this also means that the agent can earn a rent from belief manipulation by deviating and implementing a bad project which is sure to fail. I show that this belief-manipulation rent decreases with past failures and implies that optimal rewards are front-loaded. The optimal contract resembles the arrangements used in venture capital, where entrepreneurs must give up equity share in exchange for further funding following failure. In the second chapter, “Informal Risk Sharing and Index Insurance: Theory with Experimental Evidence”, written with Francis Annan, we study when does informal risk sharing act as barrier or support to the take-up of an innovative index-based weather insurance? We evaluate this substitutability or complementarity interaction by considering the case of an individual who endogenously chooses to join a group and make decisions about index insurance. The presence of an individual in a risk sharing arrangement reduces his risk aversion, termed “Effective Risk Aversion” — a sufficient statistic for index decision making. Our analysis establishes that such reduction in risk aversion can lead to either reduced or increased take up of index insurance. These results provide alternative explanations for two empirical puzzles: unexpectedly low take-up for index insurance and demand being particularly low for the most risk averse. Experimental evidence based on data from a panel of field trials in India, lends support for several testable hypotheses that emerge from our baseline analysis. In the third chapter, “Investment Timing, Moral Hazard and Overconfidence”, I study how overconfidence and financial frictions impact entrepreneurs by shaping their incentives to learn. I consider a real option model in which an entrepreneur learns about the quality of project he has, prior to implementation. Success depends on the quality of the project as well as the unknown ability of the entrepreneur. The possibility of the entrepreneur diverting investor funds to his private uses, creates a moral hazard problem which leads to delayed investment and over-experimentation. An entrepreneur who is overconfident regarding his ability, under-experiments and over invests compared to an entrepreneur who has accurate beliefs regarding his ability. Such overconfidence on behalf of the entrepreneur creates inefficiencies when projects are self financed, but reduces inefficiencies due to moral hazard in case of funding by investors.

Chapter one of this thesis examines one of the largest primary school construction program, INPRES SD, in late 1970s in Indonesia. Using the variation across regions in the number of schools constructed and the variation across birth cohorts, I show that in densely populated areas, primary school construction did not affect primary school attainment rate. More surprisingly, the program decreased secondary school attainment rate for both men and women due to a crowding out of teacher resources. Chapter two of this thesis examines how education distribution affects the marriage market, in particular, female marriage age. I first develop a two-to-one dimensional matching model with transferable utility in an OLG framework, in which the marital surplus allows complementarity between men's education and both characteristics of women: education and youth, to understand how female marriage age is affected by others' education.I then use INPRES SD as a quasi-natural experiment and find that a woman marries earlier and the spousal age gap increases when fewer women in her birth cohort graduate from secondary school and the education distribution of their potential husbands does not change.The empirical finding suggests that men's education and women's young age are complementary in generating the marital surplus in the current setting. Chapter three of this thesis examines how hukou system affects the marriage market in China. I build a bidimensional matching model in which individuals are determined by a continuous attribute (that indicates social economic status) and a discrete attribute (hukou status, either rural or urban). Urban hukou is more valuable for men than women since it's more likely for a woman to move to her husband's location upon marriage in a patrilocal society. The model gives predictions on the matching patterns which are validated using the China 2000 0.095% sample census.

This thesis explores the consequences of 'increasingly capable machines' on earnings and employment. A new literature, the task-based approach, has been developed for this purpose. And this literature presents an optimistic account of the prospects for labour in the 21st century. The central claim in this literature is that "people tend to overstate the extent of machine substitution for labour and ignore the complementarities". This thesis challenges this optimism. I argue that such optimism is based on two assumptions, neither of which is justified. The first is that the supply-side analysis in this literature is based on outdated reasoning about how these machines operate. The result is that the models arbitrarily constrain what machines are capable of doing. The second is that the demand-side analysis in this literature is either altogether missing, or is carried out in a way that is constrained by the arbitrary supply-side assumption. In this thesis I build a new range of task-based models that are based on more justifiable assumptions. The first set of models show that updated reasoning about how machines operate leads to a pessimistic account of the prospects for labour. The second set of models show that the demand-side has an important role in either strengthening, or weakening, this pessimism that is reached when the supply-side is looked at in isolation. This analysis leads to the identification of an important new 'race' in the labour market.

Wong, Pang Hing. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-114). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT / TABLE OF CONTENTS / LIST OF FIGURES / LIST OF TABLES / LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS / Chapter CHAPTER ONE --- INTRODUCTION / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Research Justification --- p.1 / Chapter 1.3 --- Research Objectives --- p.3 / Chapter 1.4 --- Research Significance --- p.4 / Chapter 1.5 --- Outline of Thesis --- p.4 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- REGIONAL COOPERATION AND PORT DEVELOPMENT IN THE GPRD / Chapter 2.1 --- Regional Cooperation in the GPRD --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Overview --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Different Actors on Regional Cooperation in the GPRD --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- Port Development under Regional Cooperation --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Global Trend of Port Development --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Forces Affecting Port Competition and Cooperation --- p.13 / Chapter 2.3 --- Regional Development and Hong Kong Port --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Role of Hong Kong's Port --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Relationship with Other Ports in the GPRD --- p.16 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Future Strategy of Hong Kong's Port --- p.17 / Chapter 2.4 --- Discussion --- p.19 / Chapter 2.5 --- Summary --- p.20 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY / Chapter 3.1 --- Research Objectives --- p.21 / Chapter 3.2 --- Research Methodology --- p.22 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Integrated Approach --- p.22 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- SWOT Analysis --- p.24 / Chapter 3.3 --- Conceptual Framework --- p.26 / Chapter 3.4 --- Research Design --- p.29 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Case Study --- p.29 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Data Collection --- p.30 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Semi-structured In-depth Interview --- p.31 / Chapter 3.5 --- Summary --- p.31 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- PORT DEVELOPMENT IN PEARL RIVER DELTA: HONG KONG PORT AND SHENZHEN PORT / Chapter 4.1 --- An Overview of Greater Pearl River Delta --- p.32 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- An Overview of the Development of the Container Ports in the GPRD Region --- p.32 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Functions and Positioning of Ports in the GPRD --- p.34 / Chapter 4.2 --- Hong Kong Port and Shenzhen Ports --- p.40 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Development of Hong Kong Port --- p.40 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Development of Shenzhen Ports --- p.45 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Changing Position of Hong Kong Port with the Impact of Shenzhen Ports --- p.49 / Chapter 4.4 --- Summary --- p.52 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- CURRENT SITUATION OF HONG KONG PORT / Chapter 5.1 --- SWOT Analysis of the Hong Kong Port --- p.53 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Strengths --- p.53 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Weaknesses --- p.61 / Chapter 5.1.3 --- Opportunities --- p.63 / Chapter 5.1.4 --- Threats --- p.70 / Chapter 5.2 --- Comparative Advantages of the Shenzhen Ports --- p.77 / Chapter 5.3 --- Summary --- p.75 / Chapter CHAPTER SIX --- COOPERATION BETWEEN HONG KONG PORT AND SHENZHEN PORTS / Chapter 6.1 --- The Relationship between Hong Kong Port and Shenzhen Ports --- p.76 / Chapter 6.1.1 --- Competition --- p.77 / Chapter 6.1.2 --- Cooperation --- p.78 / Chapter 6.1.3 --- Partnership between Hong Kong Port and Shenzhen Ports- --- p.79 / Chapter 6.1.4 --- Limitation on the Current Cooperation --- p.82 / Chapter 6.2 --- Potential of Further Cooperation between Hong Kong Port and Shenzhen Ports --- p.83 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Market Changes: Shifting of Industries from Eastern PRD to Western PRD --- p.84 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Complementary of the Other's Weaknesses --- p.86 / Chapter 6.2.3 --- Environmental Conservation --- p.88 / Chapter 6.2.4 --- Over-competition: Duplicated Infrastructure --- p.89 / Chapter 6.3 --- Obstacles on Further Cooperation --- p.91 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Different Expectation between Provincial Government and Local Governments --- p.91 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Different Expectation between Government and the Port Industry --- p.92 / Chapter 6.3.3 --- Market Force --- p.93 / Chapter 6.3.4 --- Extent of Government Involvement --- p.95 / Chapter 6.3.5 --- Different Background between Two Cities --- p.96 / Chapter 6.4 --- Summary --- p.97 / Chapter CHAPTER SEVEN --- CONCLUSION / Chapter 7.1 --- Introduction --- p.98 / Chapter 7.2 --- Major Findings --- p.99 / Chapter 7.2.1 --- The Strength and Weakness of Hong Kong Port --- p.99 / Chapter 7.2.2 --- The Changing Status of Hong Kong Port in Facing the Competition from Shenzhen Ports --- p.101 / Chapter 7.2.3 --- Possible Directions of Strengthening Regional Cooperation --- p.103 / Chapter 7.3 --- Further Research --- p.105 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.106 / APPENDIXES / Chapter Appendix One --- Questions to Interviewees (in English) --- p.115 / Chapter Appendix Two --- List of Interviewees --- p.117

曹美英. / 論文(哲學碩士) -- 香港中文大學硏究院社會學學部, 1996. / 參考文献 : leaves 64-72. / Cao Meiying. / Chapter 第一部 --- 分硏究背景與硏究方法 / Chapter 第一章 --- 導言 --- p.5 / Chapter 第二章 --- 改革開放前的社會制度考察 --- p.7 / Chapter 一、 --- 五十年代以來中國的所有制結構變遷 --- p.7 / Chapter 二、 --- 公有制結構下的勞動就業制度 --- p.7 / Chapter 三、 --- 公有制結構下的勞動工資制度 --- p.8 / Chapter 四、 --- 小結 --- p.10 / Chapter 第三章 --- 當代中國城市家庭槪況 --- p.11 / Chapter 一、 --- 單位制度下的中國城市家庭 --- p.11 / Chapter 二、 --- 中國城市家家庭結構掃描 --- p.12 / Chapter 1、 --- 核心家庭中國城市家庭的主要形 式 --- p.12 / Chapter 2、 --- 城市家庭的小型化 --- p.13 / Chapter 三、 --- 城市家庭關係的變化 --- p.13 / Chapter 四、 --- 小結 --- p.14 / Chapter 第四章、 --- 中國的三次“下海´ح潮及“下海´ح研究綜述 --- p.15 / Chapter 一、 --- 三次´ب下海´ح潮 --- p.15 / Chapter 二、 --- “下海´ح硏究綜述 --- p.16 / Chapter 第五章 --- 研究方法 --- p.17 / Chapter 一、 --- 訪問對象的選擇 --- p.17 / Chapter 二、 --- 訪問對象的基本特點 --- p.18 / Chapter 三、 --- 訪問過程 --- p.20 / Chapter 四、 --- 小結 --- p.21 / Chapter 第二部 --- 分硏究結果 / Chapter 第六章 --- “一家兩制´ح的形成原因 --- p.23 / Chapter 一、 --- “下海´ح：尋找新的機會 --- p.23 / Chapter 1、 --- 家庭經濟的困境 --- p.23 / Chapter 2、 --- 公有制體制的流弊 --- p.27 / Chapter 3、 --- 個人動機 --- p.29 / Chapter 二、 --- “留守´ح:把握既得利益 --- p.31 / Chapter 1、 --- 住房：對社會主義優越性的依戀 --- p.31 / Chapter 2、 --- “摸著石頭過河´ح-對政策穩定性的疑慮 --- p.33 / Chapter 3、 --- 個人和家庭因素 --- p.35 / Chapter 4、 --- 小結 --- p.36 / Chapter 第七章 --- 協商過程：走向“一家兩制´ح --- p.38 / Chapter 一、 --- “誰下海´ح ？ “誰留守´ح ？ --- p.38 / Chapter 二、 --- 協商對象 --- p.41 / Chapter (一)、 --- 配偶協商 --- p.41 / Chapter (二) 、 --- 父母協商 --- p.44 / Chapter (三)、 --- 親友協商 --- p.48 / Chapter 四、 --- 小結 --- p.49 / Chapter 第八章 --- “一家兩制´ح給家庭帶來的影響 --- p.50 / Chapter 一、 --- 家庭經濟狀況的改善 --- p.50 / Chapter 二、 --- 個人價値的實現 --- p.51 / Chapter 三、 --- 婦女的雙重角色 --- p.53 / Chapter 四、 --- 新的社會問題 --- p.56 / Chapter 五、 --- 小結 --- p.59 / Chapter 第九章 --- 結論北京市“一家兩制´ح家庭的特征及對社會的影響 --- p.60 / 參考書目 --- p.62

by Ho, Wai-Sum Shirley. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-71). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iv / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.vii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.viii / PREFACE --- p.ix / Chapter / Chapter 1. --- WHAT PEOPLE DO IN THE INTERNET --- p.1 / Introduction --- p.1 / What the Internet can do for Businesses --- p.1 / What Individuals Can Achieve in the Net --- p.5 / Chapter 2. --- INTERNET STATISTICS AND THE SOCIAL PERCEPTION ON IT --- p.8 / Introduction --- p.8 / The World-wide Coverage --- p.8 / Survey on Internet User Statistics --- p.10 / Market Size of the Internet in Various Aspects --- p.16 / Chapter 3. --- THE BUSINESS MODEL OF AN ISP - THE BREAD AND BUTTER AS WELL AS THE COSTS --- p.19 / Introduction --- p.19 / An ISP's Revenues and Costs --- p.19 / Chapter 4. --- THE ECONOMIES OF INTERNET MARKETING AND ADVERTISING --- p.24 / Introduction --- p.24 / Statistics on Web Advertising and Internet Shopping --- p.21 / Internet Marketing --- p.28 / Chapter 5. --- THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF THE INTERNET TO MODERN SOCIETY --- p.30 / Introduction --- p.30 / Today's Internet Economy --- p.31 / What Directions is the Internet is Headed --- p.32 / Structure of the Internet Economy --- p.34 / Who are Likely to Make Money ？ --- p.36 / How Companies' Core Businesses will be Affected --- p.38 / Impact on the Core Economy --- p.40 / Chapter 6. --- INFLUENCE OF THE INTERNET - PRESENT AND PREDICTION FOR THE FUTURE --- p.44 / Introduction --- p.44 / How Companies will be Affected --- p.45 / Predictions for the Near Future (1 or 2 years) --- p.45 / Chapter 7. --- AN EMERGING BUSINESS OF INTERNET EXTENSION -INTRANET --- p.52 / Introduction --- p.52 / The Relationship and Difference between Internet and Intranet --- p.53 / "The Intranet Causes Information Access to be Faster, Better, and More Economical" --- p.54 / Why do Corporations use Intranets as their Means Inter-branch Communications ？ --- p.55 / Intranet for Low Cost International Communication --- p.57 / Putting the Data Warehouse on the Intranet --- p.58 / Case Study: The Intranet Slashing the Cost of Business --- p.59 / Chapter 8. --- CONCLUSION --- p.64 / The Economic Sphere of Influence of the Internet --- p.64 / Intranet - Business with Prosperous Future --- p.66 / APPENDIX1 --- p.67 / WHO IS WHO IN HONG KONG´ة S INTERNET COMMUNITY --- p.67 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.70

This dissertation uses applied microeconomic tools to study three topics of fundamental importance for the regulation of the urban environment: housing, pollution, and the criminal justice system. The first chapter considers the mortgage market, and analyzes the regulatory tradeoff between optimal credit access and mortgage default. The second chapter examines the difficulties of designing environmental policy in interlinked production processes. In particular, we investigate (i) the impact of regulation on the producers of an upstream good on the pollution practices of the downstream firms that process that good and (ii) the subsequent health impacts on those who live in the cities and towns surrounding the downstream firms. The third chapter explores the bail system used for criminal defendants in the United States, and shows that the requirement that defendants post money bail has profound impacts on case outcomes. Chapter 1, "Asymmetric Information and the Link Between Leverage and Mortgage Default" begins with the observation that borrowers with large mortgages relative to their home values are more likely to default. This chapter asks whether this correlation is due to moral hazard---larger balances causing borrowers to default---or adverse selection---ex-ante risky borrowers choosing larger loans. To separate these information asymmetries, I exploit a natural experiment resulting from (i) the unique contract structure of Option Adjustable Rate Mortgages and (ii) the unexpected divergence, during the 2008 crisis, of two financial indices used to determine interest rate adjustments for these loans. I find that moral hazard is responsible for 60-70 percent of the baseline correlation between leverage and default, but adverse selection explains the remaining 30-40 percent. I construct and calibrate a simple model of mortgage choice and default with asymmetric information to highlight the policy tradeoff informed by my estimates. I show that optimal regulation of mortgage leverage must weigh losses from defaults against under-provision of credit due to adverse selection. In Chapter 2, "Interlinked Firms and the Consequences of Piecemeal Regulation", coauthored with Jonas Hjort and Gianmarco Leon, we note that industrial regulations are typically designed with a particular policy objective and set of firms in mind. Yet when input-output linkages connect firms across sectors, such ``piecemeal'' regulations may worsen externalities elsewhere in the economy. Using daily administrative and survey data, we show that in Peru's industrial fishing sector, the world's largest, air pollution from downstream (fishmeal) manufacturing plants caused 55,000 additional respiratory hospital admissions per year as a consequence of the introduction of individual property rights (over fish) upstream. By removing suppliers' incentive to ``race'' for the resource and enabling market share to move from inefficient to efficient firms, the reform spread production out across time, as predicted by a conceptual framework of vertically connected sectors. We show that longer periods of moderate air polluting production are worse for health than shorter periods of higher intensity exposure. Our findings demonstrate the risks of piecemeal regulatory design in interlinked economies. In Chapter 3, "The Heavy Costs of High Bail: Evidence from Judge Randomization", coauthored with Ethan Frenchman and Arpit Gupta, considers the bail system in the United States. On any given day, roughly 450,000 people are detained awaiting trial, typically because they have not posted bail. Using a large sample of criminal cases in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, we analyze the consequences of the money bail system by exploiting the variation in bail-setting tendencies among randomly assigned bail judges. Our estimates suggest that the assignment of money bail causes a 12% rise in the likelihood of conviction, and a 6--9% rise in recidivism. Our results highlight the importance of credit constraints in shaping defendant outcomes and point to important fairness considerations in the institutional design of the American money bail system.

This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on agricultural and labor markets in rural India. Chapter 1 estimates the role of improvements in transport infrastructure on households' production decisions in agriculture. The Central Government of India launched a large-scale rural road-building program in 2000, targeting villages that lacked any single all-weather connectivity. Strict guidelines governed eligibility and timing of program road provision. I exploit the precise timing of road construction as a source of exogenous variation in connectivity using a household-level panel in a difference-in-differences framework. I find that households who gain access to improved rural road infrastructure diversify their crop portfolio, increase take up of complementary productive inputs and intensify labor hiring. Households subsequently enter into the sales of farm output, indicating a transition from subsistence to market-oriented farming. Evidence from a field survey suggests that these effects operate through an increase in mobility of agricultural workers across connected village labor markets. These findings emphasize the substantial barrier to productive investments in agriculture generated by poor rural road connectivity that hampers the integration of labor markets across space. Chapter 2 (with Emily Breza and Supreet Kaur) investigates whether worker utility is affected by co-worker wages, which has potentially broad labor market implications. In a month-long experiment with Indian manufacturing workers, we randomize whether co-workers within production units receive the same flat daily wage or different wages (according to baseline productivity rank). We find that for a given absolute wage, pay inequality reduces output and attendance by 0.24 standard deviations and 12%, respectively. These effects strengthen in later weeks. Pay disparity also lowers co-workers' ability to cooperate in their self-interest. However, when workers can clearly observe productivity differences, pay inequality has no discernible effect on output, attendance, or group cohesion. Chapter 3 uses experimental evidence to understand the impacts of providing workers with meaningful short-term employment during the lean season in agriculture. I randomize job offers among Indian agricultural workers who express interest in a month-long employment opportunity in low-skill manufacturing, and I follow these workers several weeks after the employment opportunity concludes. I find reductions in labor supply and gains in consumption among workers who received job offers. These effects are concentrated among landless workers, suggesting that employment provision during the lean months alleviated a binding constraint for this subgroup.

Wong, Tak Yuen. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 29-30). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.6 / Chapter 3 --- The Roommate Problem --- p.8 / Chapter 4 --- The Existence of Stable Matchings --- p.11 / Chapter 5 --- Random Paths to Stability --- p.22 / Chapter 6 --- Concluding Remarks --- p.28

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