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作者：Elliott, Matthew
作者单位：University of Cambridge; California Institute of Technology
摘要：In many markets, relationship specific investments are necessary for trade. These formed relationships constitute a networked market in which not all buyers can trade with all sellers. We show that networked markets can be decomposed to identify how alternative trading opportunities affect who trades with whom and at what price. This uncovers agents' incentives to invest in relationships. Investment inefficiencies can eliminate all the gains from trade, but for reasons that differ depending on...
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作者：Limao, Nuno; Maggi, Giovanni
作者单位：University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; National Bureau of Economic Research; Yale University; Getulio Vargas Foundation
摘要：We explore conditions under which trade agreements can provide gains by reducing trade policy uncertainty. Given the degree of income risk aversion, this is more likely when economies are more open, export supply elasticities are lower, and economies more specialized. Governments have stronger incentives to sign trade agreements when the trading environment is more uncertain. As exogenous trade costs decline, the gains from reducing tariff uncertainty become more important relative to reducing...
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作者：Swank, Otto H.; Visser, Bauke
作者单位：Erasmus University Rotterdam; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Tinbergen Institute; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam
摘要：We examine centralized versus decentralized decision making when experience of agents is private information and communication is necessary to learn from others. An agent has reputational concerns and his market may or may not observe what the other agent chooses (global versus local markets). With decentralized decision making, agents' willingness to communicate depends heavily on what a market observes. Strikingly, less communication may improve welfare. If markets are global, centralization...
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作者：Jackson, Matthew O.; Yariv, Leeat
作者单位：Stanford University; The Santa Fe Institute; Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR); California Institute of Technology
摘要：We study collective decisions by time-discounting individuals choosing a common consumption stream. We show that with any heterogeneity in time preferences, every Pareto efficient and non-dictatorial method of aggregating utility functions must be time-inconsistent. We also show that decisions made via non-dictatorial voting methods are intransitive.
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作者：Dutta, Rohan; Horan, Sean
作者单位：McGill University; Universite de Montreal; Universite de Montreal
摘要：A wide variety of choice behavior inconsistent with preference maximization can be explained by Manzini and Mariotti's Rational Shortlist Methods. Choices are made by sequentially applying a pair of asymmetric binary relations (rationales) to eliminate inferior alternatives. Manzini and Mariotti's axiomatic treatment elegantly describes which behavior can be explained by this model. However, it leaves unanswered what can be inferred, from observed behavior, about the underlying rationales. Est...
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作者：Skrzypacz, Andrzej; Toikka, Juuso
作者单位：Stanford University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
摘要：How does feasibility of efficient repeated trade depend on the features of the environment such as persistence of values, private information about their evolution, or trading frequency? We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for efficient, unsubsidized, and voluntary trade, which implies that efficient contracting requires sufficient congruence of expectations. This translates to bounds on persistence of values and on private information about their evolution, and distinguishes increa...
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作者：Roux, Nicolas; Sobel, Joel
作者单位：Max Planck Society; University of California System; University of California San Diego
摘要：Experiments identify the empirical regularity that groups tend to make decisions that are more extreme, but in the same direction as the tendency of individual members of the group. We present a model of information aggregation consistent with these findings. We assume individuals and groups are rational decision makers facing monotone statistical decision problems where groups and individuals have common preferences, but groups have superior information. We provide conditions under which the ...
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作者：Elfenbein, Daniel W.; Fisman, Raymond; McManus, Brian
作者单位：Washington University (WUSTL); Boston University; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
摘要：Quality certification programs help consumers identify high-quality products or sellers in markets with information asymmetries. Using data from eBay UK's online marketplace, we study how certification's impact on demand varies with market- and seller-level attributes, exploiting variation in sellers' certification status within groups of near-identical listings. The positive effects of eBay's top rated seller certification are stronger for categories with few other certified sellers, in more ...
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作者：Krishna, Vijay; Morgan, John
作者单位：Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; Pennsylvania State University - University Park; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
摘要：We study the welfare properties of majority and supermajority rules when voting is costly and values, costs, and electorate sizes are all random. Unlike previous work, where the electorate size was either fixed or Poisson distributed, and exhibited no limiting dispersion, we allow for general distributions that permit substantial dispersion. We identify conditions on these distributions guaranteeing that a large election under majority rule produces the utilitarian choice with probability one....
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作者：De Jaegher, Kris
作者单位：Utrecht University
摘要：In the two-player electronic mail game (EMG), as is well-known, the probability of collective action is lower the more confirmations and reconfirmations are made available to players. In the multiplayer EMG, however, we show players may coordinate on equilibria where they require only few of the available confirmations from each other to act. In this case, increasing the number of available confirmations may either create equilibria with positive probability of collective action when none exis...
