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作者：Camera, Gabriele; Casari, Marco
作者单位：Chapman University System; Chapman University; University of Bologna
摘要：What institutions can sustain cooperation in groups of strangers? Here we study the role of monetary systems. In an experiment, subjects sometimes needed help and sometimes could incur a cost to help an anonymous counterpart. In the absence of money, the intertemporal exchange of help, which could be supported by a norm of community punishment of defectors, did not emerge. Introducing intrinsically worthless tokens substantially altered patterns of behavior. Monetary trade emerged, which incre...
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作者：Drugov, Mikhail; Macchiavello, Rocco
作者单位：Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); University of Warwick
摘要：Entrepreneurs must experiment to learn how good they are at a new activity. What happens when the experimentation is financed by a lender? Under common scenarios, i.e., when there is the opportunity to learn by starting small or when noncompete clauses cannot be enforced ex post, we show that financing experimentation can become harder precisely when it is more profitable, i.e., for lower values of the known arm and for more optimistic priors. Endogenous collateral requirements (like those fre...
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作者：Quint, Daniel
作者单位：University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison
摘要：Several recent technological standards were accompanied by patent pools-arrangements to license relevant intellectual property as a package. A key distinction made by regulators-between patents essential to a standard and patents with substitutes-has not been addressed in the theoretical literature. I show that pools of essential patents are always welfare increasing, while pools which include nonessential patents can be welfare reducing-even pools limited to complementary patents and stable u...
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作者：Bar-Isaac, Heski; Deb, Joyee
作者单位：University of Toronto; Yale University
摘要：We present a model in which an agent takes actions to affect her reputation with two audiences with diverse preferences. This contrasts with standard reputation models that consider a homogeneous audience. A new aspect that arises is that different audiences may observe outcomes commonly or separately. We show that, if all audiences commonly observe outcomes, reputation concerns are necessarily efficient-the agent's per-period payoff in the long run is higher than in one-shot play. However, wh...
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作者：Kamada, Yuichiro; Kojima, Fuhito
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Stanford University
摘要：In most variants of the Hotelling-Downs model of election, it is assumed that voters have concave utility functions. This assumption is arguably justified in issues such as economic policies, but convex utilities are perhaps more appropriate in others, such as moral or religious issues. In this paper, we analyze the implications of convex utility functions in a two-candidate probabilistic voting model with a polarized voter distribution. We show that the equilibrium policies diverge if and onl...
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作者：Clark, Robert; Houde, Jean-Francois
作者单位：Universite de Montreal; Universite de Montreal; HEC Montreal; University of Pennsylvania; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We point out a fundamental difficulty of successfully colluding in retail markets with heterogeneous firms, and characterize the mechanism recent gasoline cartels in Canada used to sustain collusion. Heterogeneity in cost and network size necessitates arrangements whereby participants split the market unequally to favor stronger players. We characterize empirically the strategy and transfer mechanism using court documents containing summaries and extracts of conversations between participants....
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作者：Miravete, Eugenio J.
作者单位：University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
摘要：Firms engage in foggy pricing when the menu of tariff options aims at profiting from consumer mistakes. The analysis of this paper concludes that the transition from monopoly to competition in the early US cellular telephone industry does not generally foster the use of such deceptive strategies. I offer three alternative measures to account for the fogginess of the menu of options offered by cellular carriers. All results are robust to the existence of uncertainty regarding future consumption...
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作者：Boergers, Tilman; Cox, Ingemar; Pesendorfer, Martin; Petricek, Vaclav
作者单位：University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; University of London; University College London; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要：This paper presents a game theoretic analysis of the generalized second-price auction that the company Overture operated in 2004 to sell sponsored search listings on search engines. We construct a model that embodies few prior assumptions about parameters, and we present results that indicate that this model has under quite general assumptions a multiplicity of Nash equilibria. We then analyze bid data assuming that advertisers choose Nash equilibrium bids. We offer preliminary conclusions abo...
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作者：Roger, Guillaume
作者单位：University of Sydney
摘要：I study a model of moral hazard with soft information: the agent alone observes the stochastic outcome of her action; hence the principal faces a problem of ex post adverse selection. With limited instruments the principal cannot solve these two problems independently; the ex post incentive for misreporting interacts with the ex ante incentives for effort. This affects the shape and properties of the optimal contract, which fails to elicit truthful revelation in all states. In this setup audit...
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作者：Sautmann, Anja
作者单位：Brown University
摘要：This paper experimentally tests the predictions of a principal-agent model in which the agent has biased beliefs about his ability. Overconfident workers are found to earn lower wages than underconfident ones because they overestimate their expected payoff, and principals adjust their offers accordingly. Moreover, the profit-maximizing contract distorts effort by varying incentives according to self-confidence, although only the most successful principals use this strategy. These findings have...
