Consider the following situation involving two agents who belong to a large society. One of the agents needs help to avoid a big loss. The other agent may either incur a low cost to help him or do nothing. If agents do not recognize each other, providing incentives for socially optimal behavior...

Most work on social interactions studies a single, composite effect of interactions within a group. Yet in the case of sexual initiation, there are two distinct social mechanisms - peer-group norms and partner availability with separate effects and different potential interventions. Here I...

This paper seeks to draw attention to a flaw in the firm’s Free Cash Flow model and related statement widely accepted in Corporate Finance. We argue that the common offset of any Current Liabilities against Current Assets distorts the FCF size, composition, and volatility, thereby misstating...

We consider all-pay auctions in the presence of interdependent, affiliated valuations and private budget constraints. For the sealed-bid, all-pay auction we characterize a symmetric equilibrium in continuous strategies for the case of N bidders and we investigate its properties. Budget...

We propose and illustrate a Markov-switching multi-fractal duration (MSMD) model for analysis of inter-trade durations in financial markets. We establish several of its key properties with emphasis on high persistence (indeed long memory). Empirical exploration suggests MSMD's superiority...

Machina (2009, 2012) lists a number of situations where standard models of ambiguity aversion are unable to capture plausible features of ambiguity attitudes. Most of these problems arise in choice over prospects involving three or more outcomes. We show that the recursive non-expected utility...

This paper studies the optimal redistribution of income inequality caused by the presence of search and matching frictions in the labor market. We study this problem in the context of a directed search model of the labor market populated by homogenous workers and heterogeneous firms. The optimal...

We present a dynamic signaling model where wasteful education takes place over several periods of time. Workers pay an education cost per unit of time and cannot commit to a fixed education length. Workers face an exogenous dropout risk before graduation. Since low-productivity workers' cost is...

In Medicare Part D, low income individuals receive subsidies to enroll into insurance plans. This paper studies how premiums are distorted by the combined effects of this subsidy and the default assignment of low income enrollees into plans. Removing this distortion could reduce the cost of the...

This paper studies optimal Ramsey taxation when risk sharing in private insurance markets is imperfect due to limited enforcement. In a limited commitment economy, there are externalities associated with capital and labor because individuals do not take into account that their labor and saving...