<p> Economic activity frequently takes place in markets that are subject to search frictions. To reduce search costs, agents often interact repeatedly with the same partner, for example through long-term employment contracts or in long-term business relationships. The main purpose of my dissertation is to study long-term relationships between firms. Chapters 1-2 use confidential, transaction-level import data from the U.S. Census to comprehensively analyze long-term business relationships, and use theory to illuminate their potential macroeconomic effects. Chapter 3 studies how labor market institutions affect worker-firm relationships, specifically the allocation of workers to firms. </p><p> In the first chapter of my dissertation, I investigate how long-term buyer-seller relationships affect price rigidity. Economists have long suspected that firm-to-firm relationships might increase price rigidity due to the use of explicit or implicit fixed-price contracts. I study the responsiveness of import prices to exchange rate changes in the Census data and show that prices are in fact substantially more responsive to these cost shocks in older versus newly formed relationships. Based on additional stylized facts about the life cycle of relationships and interviews I conducted with purchasing managers, I develop a model in which a buyer-seller pair subject to persistent, stochastic shocks to production costs shares profit risk under limited commitment. Relationships that experience good shocks have lower costs, trade more, and survive longer, which generates the life cycle. Furthermore, since partners in older relationships on average enjoy a greater relationship surplus, alternative matches are less attractive to them, which enables the firms to share profit risk more completely by setting prices that are more responsive to shocks. Once structurally estimated, the model replicates the empirical correlation between relationship age and price flexibility. My results suggest that changes to the average length of relationships in the economy &ndash; e.g., in a recession, when the share of young relationships declines &ndash; can influence price flexibility and thus the effectiveness of monetary policy. </p><p> The second chapter (co-authored with Justin Pierce, Georg Schaur, and Peter Schott) examines how trade barriers affect firms' relationships with suppliers. In our theoretical framework, firms can conduct purchases under two opposing systems. Under the "Japanese" system, buyers motivate sellers to maintain product quality via small, frequent orders at a price above seller's cost and by promising a continued relationship if the quality is good. Under the "American" system, buyers place large orders with the lowest cost bidder and quality is ensured via costly inspection. A lower probability of a trade war increases firms' incentives to switch to Japanese-style procurement since it makes long-term relationships more sustainable. We test the model's predictions using the Census data. We use a differences-in-differences strategy to exploit a shift in U.S. trade policy which eliminated the threat of a rise in U.S. tariffs for Chinese imports to potentially prohibitive levels. Consistent with our predictions, we find a shift of procurement practices towards the Japanese system after the policy change. The results suggest that trade agreements which allow firms to develop long-term relationships may give rise to a new source of welfare gains from trade associated with lower inventory and monitoring costs. </p><p> The third chapter of my dissertation (co-authored with Tommaso Porzio) focuses on worker-firm relationships. We investigate whether a change in labor market regulations can improve the allocative efficiency of worker-firm matches. We study this question using the German reunification as a natural experiment that exposed East Germany to Western-style institutions. Interpreting a firm's median wage as a measure of its inherent productivity, we use matched employer-employee data to examine the evolution of allocative efficiency, defined as the correlation between a firm's median wage and its number of workers. We find that East German allocative efficiency is significantly below West German efficiency levels even 20 years after the reunification, for two reasons. First, East German workers face a flatter job ladder: when moving job-to-job, the difference between their previous firm's median wage and their new firm's median wage is smaller than in the West. Second, East German workers more frequently become unemployed. We rationalize our findings in a job ladder model with low and high productivity firms in which East Germany has a higher risk of job termination than the West. This higher risk of employment relationship separation lowers the incentive for high productivity firms to post vacancies, which flattens the job ladder. Our work highlights that policies shifting a country's labor market institutions towards Western policies may fail to generate large efficiency gains when the shift is accompanied by a rise in unemployment.</p>

<p> This research investigated the effects of supplier corporate social responsibility (CSR) on buyer expectations of corporate brand performance as well as the mediating effects of brand equity on buyer expectations of brand performance. For decades, organizations have integrated CSR as a business strategy to engage multiple stakeholders in a favorable manner. Extensive literature has revealed how CSR drives brand equity to sustain a brand&rsquo;s competitive advantage through improved profitability and reputation in the market; it also has indicated the value of CSR as influencing brand performance. This research successfully closed gaps in the extant literature by addressing the influence of CSR as viewed by U.S. buyers in the business-to-business environment, thus explaining value creation and redistribution through the influence of stakeholder theory. A quantitative, non-experimental survey was conducted with 400 randomly selected business-to-business buyers working for U.S. companies with a minimum of 100 full-time employees. Panel respondents were screened for decision-making authority, industry, and geographic distribution to participate in the online survey. Analysis revealed that supplier CSR significantly influenced brand performance expectations of buyers, with brand equity working to enhance brand performance expectations. Confirming that supplier CSR investment translated to a competitive advantage with business-to-business customers highlighted the available potential of targeted spending by supplier organization marketing divisions to key stakeholder groups.</p>

The analysis described in this dissertation demonstrates the use of benefit/cost sensitivity analysis in examining the wide range of potential damages and savings associated with converting oil-fired electrical utility boilers to burn coal in Florida. This model, for the first time incorporates, in quantitative terms, environmental economic externalities into a benefit cost ratio sensitivity analysis framework. Five different dose-response estimate of morbidity and mortality costs, property devaluation and willing-to-pay estimates are used in combination with four acid rain dose-response models to estimate the net present worth of externality costs. / The model estimates the net present worth of benefits by incorporating into a dynamic framework all relevant construction, O+M and fuel costs of converting an electrical generation facility from using oil to coal. These benefits of fuel savings are then weighted against various combinations of externality costs associated with increased sulfur oxide emission from the converted units. / The policy analysis simulations provided in this study demonstrate that the economic externalities associated with uncontrolled emissions are frequently far greater than the higher operation and maintenance and capital costs of the most expensive emission control equipment. Furthermore, the partial and full emission control options result in very little change in the net present worth of savings from the completely uncontrolled option. The acid rain dose response models employed in this analysis are first approximations only drawn from a wide range of national and international research. The relative magnitude of acid rain externality costs, however, overwhelm all other sulfur oxide morbidity and mortality, willingness-to-pay and all property value change dose response model combinations. / The introduction of environmental economic externalities into the benefit cost equations significantly alters the final ratios as the sensitivity analysis in this report demonstrates. Finally, internalizing these externalities substantially alters the policy conclusions of all scenarios examined. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-09, Section: A, page: 2947. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

An analysis of unanticipated cost growth (cost overruns) in the construction of electric powerplants, focusing on those characteristics within the firm's operating environment which distort incentives for efficient resource allocation. The work of Averch-Johnson and Joskow serves as a starting point for a theoretical analysis which specifies the firm's objective function as it appears within the context of modern electric utility regulation. The author concludes that the objective function as specified implies that the willingness of the firm to invest is fully determined by three factors: expected plant life for rate making purposes, the allowed return on ratebase, and the firm's opportunity cost of capital. Two data sets are used to test the derived hypotheses. One is Department of Energy data on all nuclear generating units currently in service in the United States. The second is a data set compiled by the author from the docket files of the Florida Public Service Commission covering all powerplants currently in service in the Jacksonville Electric Authority, Gulf Power Company, Florida Power Corporation and Florida Power and Light Company service areas. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-07, Section: A, page: 2207. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

The objective of this study is to study three issues related to the Tallahassee, Florida housing market. These issues are: the specification of a hedonic housing equation, determine the effect of public schools on the housing value, and the determinants of probability of sale. Three different models were estimated based on a cross-sectional sample and the use of a stepwise multiple regression method. / The empirical results for Model I, hedonic value, indicate that lot size, floor area, the existence of a paved front road, a fireplace, a garage, and a carport are the most significant structural variables that determine the housing value. Median family income, however, turned out to be the only significant neighborhood variable. The rest of the variables included in the model, even though the majority have the expected sign, are insignificant. / Using school districts as a measure for neighborhood quality, Model II, turned out to have a significant effect on housing value. Empirical results indicate that housing units located in good schooling neighborhoods are more expensive than comparable units located in neighborhoods with a low quality of schools. Our findings show that housing value could increase up to 20 percent than it would actually be if it is located in a neighborhood characterized with a high level of school's quality. / The last model estimated in this study is the probability of sale model. Using both an OLS and a logit technique, the empirical results show that housing units are more (less) likely to sell if: (1) it is vacant (occupied), (2) it is not overpriced (underpriced) by owners, and (3) it has been on the market for less (more) than ninety days. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-01, Section: A, page: 0223. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 38-05, Section: A, page: 2943. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1977.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 39-06, Section: A, page: 3719. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1978.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 39-03, Section: A, page: 1732. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1978.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 39-06, Section: A, page: 3718. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1978.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 39-06, Section: A, page: 3719. / Thesis (D.B.A.)--The Florida State University, 1978.