Much of the literature on time inconsistency has studied the external commitment devices that individuals use to address their self-control problems: tying oneself to the mast, staying away from temptation, holding illiquid assets, or "asking controls" from others. This paper, by contrast,...

In this paper we study how observing the actions of others affects individuals' ability to exercise self-control.

This paper analyzes the self-identification process and its role in motivation. We build a model of self-confidence where people have imperfect knowledge about their ability, which in most tasks is a complement to effort in determining performance. High self-confidence thus enhances motivation,...

This paper studies the interactions between an individual's self-esteem and his social environment, whether in the workplace, at school, or in personal relationships. A person generally has only imperfect knowledge of his own ability (or long-term payoff) in pursuing a task, and will undertake...

Interest in economic mobility stems largely from its perceived role as an equalizer of opportunities, though not necessarily of outcomes. In this paper we show that this view leads very naturally to a methodology for the measurement of social mobility which has strong parallels with the theory...

Even people with income below average will not support high rates of redistribution, because of the prospect of upward mobility: they take into account the fact the they, or their children, may move up in the income distribution, and therefore be hurt by high tax rates. This "intuitive"...

This paper examines how ambiguous notions such as "meritocracy" , "equality of opportunity" and "equality of outcomes" can be given a formal content and related to more standard economic concepts such as social mobility, income inequality, and efficiency.