Many authors argue that asymmetric information between the Federal Reserve and the public is important to the conduct and the effects of monetary policy. This paper tests for the existence of such asymmetric information by examining Federal Reserve and commercial inflation forecasts. We...

This paper employs a correspondence experiment across the Northeast US to examine landlord responses to prospective tenants inquiries through a low-income housing rental web site. Using two randomized treatment groups, we find that the probability of a prospective tenant receiving a response...

Recurrent list-price reductions of a house may signal a movement towards fair pricing or underpricing, and the impatience of sellers to enter a sell transaction more quickly. Recurrent list-price reductions may also provide a market signal that the listings are problematic and thus harder to...

In some countries, including France, patients can choose between consulting a physician working in the regulated sector where, in general, fees are fully covered by health insurance (whether public, private or mixed), or a physician working in the unregulated sector, where a balance billing...

Objective - Loan loss provision is an accrual for the banking industry, and therefore has a significant effect on bank accounting earnings and capital requirements. Previous studies showed inconsistent results for the relationship between earnings management, signaling, and loan loss provision....

I empirically study how confirmatory bias works for strong and contradictory signals using data on sell-side analysts. I first model an agent who is prone to confirmatory bias and whose task is to value a stock based on a signal, and introduce the effects of the signal strength by relaxing Rabin...

This paper analyzes a principal-agent procurement problem in which the principal is unaware of events affecting the agent's marginal costs. Since she does not conceive of all relevant events, her planned menu of contracts may be suboptimal. Communication arises naturally as some types of the...

We propose a model that combines statistical discrimination and educational sorting that explains why blacks get more education than do whites of similar cognitive ability. Our model explains the difference between blacks and whites in the relations between education and AFQT and between wages...

This paper describes a simple model of labor disputes based on the hypothesis that unions use strikes to infer the level of profitability of the firm. The implications of the model are then tested using data on wage outcomes, strike probabilities, and strike durations for a large sample of...