Markets sometimes unravel, with offers becoming inefficiently early. Often this is attributed to competition arising from an imbalance of demand and supply, typically excess demand for workers. However this presents a puzzle, since unraveling can only occur when firms are willing to make early...

Many markets encounter difficulty maintaining a thick marketplace because they experience transactions made at dispersed times. To address such problems, many markets try to establish norms concerning when offers can be made, accepted, and rejected. Examining such markets suggests it is...

The entry-level market for American gastroenterologists was organized by a centralized clearinghouse from 1986 to 1996. Before, and since, it has been conducted via a decentralized market in which appointment dates have unraveled to well over a year before the start of employment. We find that,...

This paper, written by the members of the American Economic Association (AEA) Ad Hoc Committee on the Job Market, provides an overview of the market for new Ph.D. economists. It describes the role of the AEA in the market and focuses in particular on two mechanisms adopted in recent years at the...

This chapter is intended as an introduction to laboratory experiments, when to use, how to evaluate them, why they matter and what are the pitfalls when designing them. I hope that users as well as consumers will find Sections that broaden their views. I start with when an economist might want...