From Robin Sickles: As I indicated to you some months ago Professor William Horrace and I would like Springer to publish a Festschrift in Honor of Peter Schmidt, our professor. Peter s accomplishments are legendary among his students and the profession. I have a bit of that student perspective in my introductory and closing remarks on the website for the conference we had in his honor this last July. I have attached the conference program from which selected papers will come (as well as from students who were unable to attend). You will also find the names of his students (40) on the website. A top twenty economics department could be started up from those 40 students. Papers from some festschrifts have a thematic link among the papers based on subject material. What I think is unique to this festschrift is that the theme running through the papers will be Peter s remarkable legacy left to his students to frame a problem and then analyze and examine it in depth using rigorous techniques but rarely just for the purpose of showcasing technical refinements per se. I think this would be a book that graduate students would find invaluable in their early research careers and seasoned scholars would find invaluable in both their and their students research."

From the Introduction: This volume is dedicated to the remarkable career of Professor Peter Schmidt and the role he has played in mentoring us, his PhD students. Peter's accomplishments are legendary among his students and the profession. Each of the papers in this Festschrift is a research work executed by a former PhD student of Peter's, from his days at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to his time at Michigan State University. Most of the papers were presented at The Conference in Honor of Peter Schmidt, June 30 - July 2, 2011. The conference was largely attended by his former students and one current student, who traveled from as far as Europe and Asia to honor Peter. This was a conference to celebrate Peter's contribution to our contributions. By "our contributions" we mean the research papers that make up this Festschrift and the countless other publications by his students represented and not represented in this volume. Peter's students may have their families to thank for much that is positive in their lives. However, if we think about it, our professional lives would not be the same without the lessons and the approaches to decision making that we learned from Peter. We spent our days together at Peter's conference and the months since reminded of these aspects of our personalities and life goals that were enhanced, fostered, and nurtured by the very singular experiences we have had as Peter's students. We recognized in 2011 that it was unlikely we would all be together again to celebrate such a wonderful moment in ours and Peter's lives and pledged then to take full advantage of it. We did then, and we are now in the form of this volume.