We study an individual who faces a dynamic decision problem in which the process of information arrival is unobserved by the analyst. We derive a sequence of representations of preferences over menus of acts that capture the individual's uncertainty about his future beliefs. Using the most...

Bidders’ risk attitudes have important implications for sellers seeking to maximize expected revenues. In ascending auctions, auction theory predicts bid distributions in Bayesian Nash equilibrium does not convey any information about bidders' risk preference. We propose a new approach for...

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have spread worldwide as a new form of social assistance for the poor. Previous evaluations of CCT programs focus mainly on rural settings, and little is known about their effects in urban areas. This paper studies the short-term (one and two-year)...

We reconsider the economics of protection with an industry subject to increasing returns. Under strong comparative disadvantage in one country, any tariff-distorted equilibrium in which both countries produce the commodity must be unstable.In general, under strong comparative disadvantage, the...

This paper offers a selective, interpretative survey of the literature on the political-support component of the political economy of international trade policy. Much of the literature is characterized either by a discrepancy between what policymakers say they are doing and how the theory models...

Two often-divergent U.S. GDP estimates are available, a widely-used expenditure side version, GDPE, and a much less widely-used income-side version, GDPI . We propose and explore a "forecast combination" approach to combining them. We then put the theory to work, producing a superior combined...

This paper examines how beliefs about own HIV status affect decisions to engage in risky sexual behavior, as measured by having extramarital sex and/or multiple sex partners. The empirical analysis is based on a panel survey of males from the 2006 and 2008 rounds of the Malawi Diffusion and...

Stochastic sequential bargaining models (Merlo and Wilson (1995, 1998)) have found wide applications in different fields including political economy and macroeconomics due to their flexibility in explaining delays in reaching an agreement. This paper presents new results in nonparametric...

Bankruptcy laws govern consumer default on unsecured credit. Foreclosure laws regulate default on secured mortgage debt. I investigate to what extent differences in foreclosure and bankruptcy laws can jointly explain variation in default rates across states. I construct a general equilibrium...

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs link public transfers to human capital investment in hopes of alleviating current poverty and reducing its intergenerational transmission. Whereas nearly all studies of their impacts have focused on youth, these CCT programs may also have an impact on...