A player i's actions in a game are determined by her beliefs about other players; these depend on the game's real-life context, not only its formal description. Define a game situation as a game together with such beliefs; call the beliefs— and i's resulting expectation—rational if there is...

A new data set facilitates study of learning spillovers in World War II shipbuilding. Our results contain two principal but contrasting themes. First, learning spillovers were a significant source of productivity growth, and may have contributed more than conventional learning effects. Second,...

Recent developments in computer networks have driven the cost of distributing information virtually to zero, creating extraordinary opportunities for sharing product evaluations. The authors present pricing and subsidy mechanisms that operate through a computerized market and induce the...

Parenting daughters, sociologists have shown, increases feminist sympathies. I test the hypothesis that children, much like neighbors or peers, can influence parental behavior. I demonstrate that conditional on total number of children, each daughter increases a congressperson's propensity to...

This paper compares centralized and decentralized coordination when managers are privately informed and communicate strategically. We consider a multidivisional organization in which decisions must be adapted to local conditions but also coordinated with each other. Information about local...

This paper studies the role of consumer learning in the demand for recorded music by examining the impact of an artist%u2019s new album on sales of past and future albums. Using detailed album sales data for a sample of 355 artists, we show that the release of a new album increases sales of old...

Experimental subjects allocate $10,000 across four S&P 500 index funds. Subject rewards depend on the chosen portfolio's subsequent return. Because the investments are not actually intermediated by the fund companies, portfolio returns are unbundled from non-portfolio services. The optimal...

If an investor wants to form a portfolio of risky assets and can exert effort to collect information on the future value of these assets before he invests, which assets should he learn about? The best assets to acquire information about are ones the investor expects to hold. But the assets the...