This paper studies bilateral insurance schemes across networks of individuals. While transfers are based on social norms, each individual must have the incentive to abide by those norms, and so we investigate the structure of stable insurance networks, in which self-enforcement constraints are...

In a credit market with enforcement constraints, we study the effects of a change in the outside options of a potential defaulter on the terms of the credit contract, as well as on borrower payoffs. The results crucially depend on the allocation of quot;bargaining powerquot; between the borrower...

We develop a measure of upward mobility that distills central features of the relative and absolute approaches to measuring mobility. The former is embodied in the Growth Progressivity axiom: transfers of instantaneous growth rates from relatively rich to poor individuals increases upward...

This paper develops a theory of socially determined aspirations, and the interaction of those aspirations with growth and inequality. The interaction is bidirectional: economy-wide outcomes determine individual aspirations, which in turn determine investment incentives and social outcomes. Thus...

A single principal interacts with several agents, offering them contracts. The crucial assumption of this paper is that the outside-option payoffs of the agents depend positively on how many "free agents" there are (these are agents who are not under contract). We study how such a principal,...