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作者：Bloch, Francis; Olckers, Matthew
作者单位：Paris School of Economics; Monash University
摘要：We analyze the design of a mechanism to extract a ranking of individuals according to a unidimensional characteristic, such as ability or need. Individuals, connected on a social network, only have local information about the ranking. We show that a planner can construct an ex post incentive compatible and efficient mechanism if and only if every pair of friends has a friend in common. We characterize the windmill network as the sparsest social network for which the planner can always construc...
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作者：Martinelli, Cesar
作者单位：George Mason University
摘要：We propose a model of political careers and electoral accountability in an environment in which politicians may take bribes at different stages of their careers and in which politicians'actions are only imper-fectly observed by voters. We show that the expectation of promotion to higher office may motivate some politicians to behave worse at the latest stages of their careers, setting off a trade-off between providing incentives for good behavior at lower levels of office and selecting better ...
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作者：Chen, Yongmin; Li, Zhuozheng; Zhang, Tianle
作者单位：University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder; Shanghai University of Finance & Economics; Lingnan University
摘要：We introduce a search model where products differ in horizontal attributes and unobserved quality (experience goods), and firms can establish quality reputation. We show that the inability of consumers to observe quality before purchase significantly changes how search frictions affect market performance. In equilibrium, higher search costs reduce match values and increase price but can boost firms' investment in product quality. Under plausible conditions, both consumer and total welfare init...
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作者：Board, Simon; Meyer-ter-vehn, Moritz
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Los Angeles
摘要：We study the life cycle of a firm that produces a good of unknown quality. The firm manages its quality by investing while consumers learn via public breakthroughs; if the firm fails to generate such breakthroughs, its revenue falls and it eventually exits. Optimal investment depends on the firm???s reputation (the market???s belief about its quality) and self-esteem (the firm???s own belief about its quality), and is single-peaked in the time since a breakthrough. We derive predictions about ...
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作者：Teh, Tat-How; Wright, Julian
作者单位：National University of Singapore
摘要：We explore the implications of steering by an informed profit-maximizing intermediary. The intermediary steers consumers by recommending firms, taking into account both the commissions firms offer and the prices they set. Such steering results in higher commissions and consumer prices, so that consumers only benefit from intermediation when their search cost is sufficiently high. Steering reverses the normal relationship between competition and price, with prices increasing in the number of co...
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作者：Chao, Yong; Tan, Guofu; Wong, Adam Chi Leung
作者单位：University of Louisville; University of Southern California; Lingnan University
摘要：We consider a nonlinear pricing problem faced by a dominant firm competing with a minor firm. The dominant firm offers a general tariff first, and then the minor firm responds with a per-unit price, followed by a buyer choosing her purchases. By developing a mechanism-design approach to solve the subgame perfect equilibrium, we characterize the dominant firm's optimal nonlinear tariff, which exhibits convexity and yet can display quantity discounts. In equilibrium the dominant firm uses a cont...
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作者：Fioretti, Michele; Vostroknutov, Alexander; Coricelli, Giorgio
作者单位：Institut d'Etudes Politiques Paris (Sciences Po); Maastricht University; University of Southern California
摘要：In a stock market experiment, we examine how regret avoidance influences the decision to sell an asset while its price changes over time. Participants know beforehand whether they will observe the future prices after they sell the asset or not. Without future prices, participants are affected only by regret about previously observed high prices (past regret), but when future prices are available, they also avoid regret about expected after-sale high prices (future regret). Moreover, as the rel...
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作者：Frankel, Alexander; Kasy, Maximilian
作者单位：University of Chicago; University of Oxford
摘要：Given a scarcity of journal space, what is the optimal rule for whether an empirical finding should be published? Suppose publications inform the public about a policy-relevant state. Then journals should publish extreme results, meaning ones that move beliefs sufficiently. This optimal rule may take the form of a one-or two-sided test comparing a point estimate to the prior mean, with critical values determined by a cost-benefit analysis. Consideration of future studies may additionally justi...
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作者：Anesi, Vincent; Buisseret, Peter
作者单位：University of Luxembourg; Harvard University
摘要：We study the limits of dynamic electoral accountability when voters are uncertain about politicians' characteristics (adverse selection) and their actions (moral hazard). Existing work argues that voters cannot achieve their first-best payoff. This is attributed to inherent deficiencies of the electoral contract, including voters' inability to precommit, and the restriction to a binary retention-replacement decision. We provide conditions under which voters can, despite these constraints, obta...
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作者：Imas, Alex; Kuhn, Michael A.; Mironova, Vera
作者单位：University of Chicago; University of Oregon; Harvard University
摘要：We study the impact of deliberation on intertemporal choices. Using multiple experiments, including a field study in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we show that the introduction of waiting periods-a policy that temporally separates information about choices from choices themselves-causes substantially less myopic decisions. These results cannot be captured by models of exponential discounting nor present bias. Comparing the effects of waiting periods to making planned choices over futur...
