Instrumental variable estimation requires untestable exclusion restrictions. With policy effects on individual outcomes, there is typically a time interval between the moment the agent realizes that he may be exposed to the policy and the actual exposure or the announcement of the actual...

We introduce strategic waiting in a global game setting with irreversible investment. Players can wait in order to make a better informed decision. We allow for cohort effects and discuss when they arise endogenously in technology adoption problems with positive contemporaneous network effects....

We analyze a long-term contracting problem involving common uncertainty about a parameter capturing the productivity of the relationship, and featuring a hidden action for the agent. We develop an approach that works for any utility function when the parameter and noise are normally distributed...

We develop a theoretical framework to study illicit drugs markets and we estimate it using data on purchases of crack cocaine. Buyers are searching for high-quality drugs, but they determine drugs' quality (i.e., their purity) only after consuming them. Hence, sellers can rip off first-time...

This paper studies how constraints on the timing of actions affect equilibrium in intertemporal coordination problems. We show that while the possibility of waiting longer for others'’ actions helps agents to coordinate in the good equilibrium, the option of delaying one’s' actions harms...

We study a model where some investors (“hedgers”) are bad at information processing, while others (“speculators”) have superior information-processing ability and trade purely to exploit it. The disclosure of financial information induces a trade externality: if speculators refrain from...

New evidence suggests that individuals "learn from experience," meaning they learn from events occurring during their own lifetimes as opposed to the entire history of events. Moreover, they weigh more heavily the more recent events compared to events occurring in the more distant past. This...

Under rational expectations monetary policy is generally highly effective in stabilizing the economy. Aggregate demand management operates through the expectations hypothesis of the term structure --- anticipated movements in future short-term interest rates control current demand. This paper...

Agents have two forecasting models, one consistent with the unique rational expectations equilibrium, another that assumes a time-varying parameter structure. When agents use Bayesian updating to choose between models in a self-referential system, we find that learning dynamics lead to selection...

This Paper shows that price rigidity evolves in an economy populated by imperfectly rational agents who experiment with alternative rules of thumb. In the model, firms must set their prices in the face of aggregate shocks. The payoff depends on the level of aggregate demand, as well as on their...