Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we first document that the recent increase in income inequality in the U.S. has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Much of this divergence is due to different trends in within-group inequality, which has...

Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we first document that the recent increase in income inequality in the U.S. has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Much of this divergence is due to different trends in within-group inequality, which has...

What determines which assets are used in transactions? We develop a framework where the extent to which assets are recognizable determines the extent to which they are acceptable in exchange--i.e. it determines their liquidity. Recognizability and liquidity are endogenized by allowing agents to...

The authors analyze the problem in which agents have nonpublic information and are to play an asymmetric information game. The agents may reveal some or all of their information to other agents prior to playing this game. Revelation is via exogenously specified certifiable statements. The...

We introduce a distinction between a firm and its network of workers. In a competitive world, if networks are easily lured away, the workers must receive the entire value of their contribution to the firm. How then can service firms have equity value? A model is analyzed in which workers are...

A yes or no decision must be made about some issue. All agents must agree. The "Coase theorem" asserts that the efficient outcome will always result. Suppose the value (positive or negative) that an individual attaches to an affirmative decision is privately known to that individual. It is...

We examine an economy in which the cost of consuming some goods can be reduced by making commitments that reduce flexibility. We show that such consumption commitments can induce consumers with risk-neutral underlying utility functions to be risk averse over small variations in income, but...

There has been a great deal of research in recent years investigating the questions of whether or not there exist institutions (game forms) for which the set of equilibria will coincide with the set of Walrasian equilibria. In this paper, the authors show the existence of a game form that is...

We examine an economy in which the cost of consuming some goods can be reduced by making commitments that reduce flexibility. We show that such consumption commitments can induce consumers with risk-neutral underlying utility functions to be risk averse over small variations in income, but...