Abstract: Prices guide the allocation of scarce resources. Whether this allocation is "good" often depends on whether the incentives generated by the market structure induce positive actions (like work effort or savings) or allow for unintended consequences that harm the greater good (like collusion or pollution). This dissertation examines three of these incentive structures in the context of public finance and industrial organization. Chapter 1 seeks to illuminate drivers of long-run energy demand from consumer durable goods, and is motivated by the large, negative pollution externality associated with energy use. I specify a structural model of air conditioner purchase timing and usage, which explicitly incorporates dynamic consumer behavior. Parameter estimates allow me to evaluate several popular demand-side energy policies. Results indicate that a carbon tax is a potent lever to achieve energy demand reductions, both immediately and in the long run. Efficiency standards are also appropriate for long-term energy reduction, though their effectiveness is reduced by causing people to purchase more energy-intensive units. Chapter 2 revisits the question of tacit collusion in the 1950s automobile industry. In his famous paper, Bresnahan (1987) develops a model to explain the brief spike in quantity in 1955, and concludes that the episode was caused by a temporary breakdown in tacit collusion. His model imposes strong restrictions on the nature of consumer preferences and intra-firm, multi-product pricing strategies. I reconstruct his original dataset and solve a random coefficients logit model that allows for a full range of substitution patterns and pricing strategies. For no year in 1954-1956 can the firm behavioral hypothesis of Bertrand competition be rejected in favor of tacit collusion. Results also indicate that firms were not profit maximizing during this period. Firm-level strategic pricing is rejected in favor of inter-brand competition. In Chapter 3 I estimate marginal effective tax rates facing households in Massachusetts, and reveal the bewildering nature of incentives that households face to work and save. We find that the U.S. fiscal system provides most households with very strong reasons to limit their labor supply and saving. It also offers some households tremendous opportunities to arbitrage the tax system by contributing to retirement accounts.