Improved consumer information about (symmetric) products can lead to better matching but also higher prices, so consumer surplus can go up or down, while profits rise. With enough firm asymmetry though, the stronger firm's price falls with more information, so both effects benefit consumers....

Consumer information on products affects competition and profits. We analyze firms' decisions to impart product information through advertising: comparative advertising also allows them to impart information about rivals' products. If firms sell products of similar qualities, both want to...

The paper introduces status as reflecting an agent's claim to recognition in her work. It is a scarce resource: increasing an agent's status requires that another agent's status is decreased. Higher status agents are more willing to exert effort in exchange for money; better-paid agents would...

We offer a model of equality of opportunity that encompasses different conceptions expressed in the public debate. In addition to circumstances whose effect on outcome should be compensated and effort which represents a legitimate source of inequality, we introduce a third factor, luck, that...

Etudier l'inégalité des chances consiste à étudier des distributions concernant les résultats d'une génération conditionnellement à des caractéristiques du milieu familial. Nous étudions l'évolution de l'inégalité des chances entre 1977 et 1993 dans l'obtention du revenu salarial en...