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作者：Goyal, Sanjeev; Rosenkranz, Stephanie; Weitzel, Utz; Buskens, Vincent
作者单位：University of Cambridge; Utrecht University; Radboud University Nijmegen
摘要：A central feature of social networks is information sharing. The Internet and related computing technologies shape the relative costs of private information acquisition and forming links with others. This article presents an experiment on the effects of changing costs. We find that a decline in relative costs of linking makes private investments more dispersed and gives rise to denser social networks. Aggregate investment falls but individuals' access to investment remains stable, due to incre...
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作者：Guimaraes, Bernardo; Sheedy, Kevin D.
作者单位：Getulio Vargas Foundation; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
摘要：Good government requires some restraints on the powerful but how can those be imposed if there is no-one above them? This article studies the equilibrium allocation of power and resources established by self-interested incumbents under the threat of rebellions from inside and outside the group in power. Commitment to uphold individuals' rights can only be achieved if power is not as concentrated as incumbents would like it to be, ex post. Power sharing endogenously enables incumbents to commit...
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作者：Fan, Haichao; Gao, Xiang
作者单位：Fudan University; Shanghai University of Finance & Economics
摘要：This article unbundles institutions protecting domestic and foreign creditors' rights. We estimate a negative relation between the degree of domestic rights protection and the external stock of private non-guaranteed debt in 85 developing countries. A supply-side explanation is that strong domestic protection supports reliable outside financing options for potential external debt defaulters; foreign investors anticipating this would tighten credit constraints ex ante. Then we formalise the arg...
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作者：Amarante, Massimiliano; Ghossoub, Mario; Phelps, Edmund
作者单位：Universite de Montreal; Universite de Montreal; Imperial College London; Columbia University
摘要：We study contracting problems where one party perceives ambiguity about the relevant contingencies. We show that the party who perceives ambiguity has to observe only the revenue/loss generated by the prospect object of negotiation, but not the underlying state. We, then, introduce a novel condition (vigilance), which extends the popular monotone likelihood ratio property to settings featuring ambiguity. Under vigilance, optimal contracts are monotonic and, thus, produce the right incentives i...
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作者：de Meza, David; Webb, David C.
作者单位：University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要：The widely applied 'positive correlation test' concludes that there is symmetric information in an insurance market if observationally identical buyers of high and low cover contracts have the same loss rate. As standard assumptions imply that only full-cover contracts are bought when information is symmetric, a contradiction arises. The existence of a variety of contracts can be reconciled with symmetric information by claim-processing costs but existing tests are then shown to fail. Ignoring...
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作者：Duh, Josephine; Spears, Dean
作者单位：University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; The Brattle Group
摘要：India's experience presents a puzzle at odds with a basic fact of household economics: amidst unprecedented economic growth, average per capita daily calorie consumption has declined in recent decades. Does an improving disease environment explain the calorie decline? A diminished burden of infectious disease could lower energy needs by increasing absorption and effective use of calories. We document a robust effect of disease exposure-measured as infant mortality and as poor sanitation-on cal...
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作者：Bhattacharya, Joydeep; Chakraborty, Shankha
作者单位：Iowa State University; University of Oregon
摘要：Inspired by the historical English experience, we modify the Beckerian paradigm of fertility by incorporating costly, societal influence on contraception. Heterogeneous, generationally-linked households choose between 'traditional' and 'modern' contraception. The modern has a higher fixed but lower variable cost of averting childbirths. Initially the rich adopt the modern, which unleashes society-wide diffusion. Eventually everyone switches, lowering fertility further and across households. Ha...
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作者：Piccolo, Salvatore; Immordino, Giovanni
作者单位：Catholic University of the Sacred Heart; University of Naples Federico II
摘要：When 'low-rank' criminals are offered to cooperate with justice in exchange of judicial leniency, their information generates ex post rents that may actually favour their bosses and increase the crime profitability. Hence, an optimal leniency policy must trade off the positive impact of helpful disclosure of insider information and the positive externality that these rents exert on the organisation's returns from crime. Due to this tension, the amnesty that minimises the probability of crime i...
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作者：Crossley, Thomas F.; de Bresser, Jochem; Delaney, Liam; Winter, Joachim
作者单位：University of Essex; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of Groningen; University of Stirling; University of Munich
摘要：We document an effect of survey participation on household saving. Identification comes from random assignment to modules within a population-representative Internet panel. The saving measure is based on linked administrative wealth data. Households that responded to a detailed questionnaire on needs in retirement reduced their non-housing saving rate by 3.5 percentage points, on a base of 1.5%. The survey may have acted as a salience shock, possibly with respect to reduced housing costs in re...
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作者：Hoffmann, Florian; Inderst, Roman; Moslener, Ulf
作者单位：University of Bonn; Goethe University Frankfurt; Imperial College London; Frankfurt School Finance & Management
摘要：We consider a production economy with externalities, which can be reduced by additional firm-level expenditures. This requires firms to raise additional outside financing, leading to deadweight loss due to a standard agency problem vis-a-vis investors. Policy is constrained as firms are privately informed about marginal abatement costs. The optimal tax on externalities is non-linear, thus, not implementable through tradable pollution rights alone, and lower than the Pigouvian tax for two reaso...
