We study the aggregate economic effects of diversity policies such as affirmative action in college admission. If agents are constrained in the side payments they can make, the free market allocation displays excessive segregation relative to the first-best. Affirmative action policies can...

This paper examines possible effects of college admission policy on general equilibrium outcomes at the high school stage. Specifically, we investigate whether a policy that bases college admission on relative performance at high school could modify in the aggregate the degree of segregation in...

Does a competitive equilibrium in a matching market provide adequate incentives for investments made before the market when utility is not perfectly transferable? This paper derives a necessary and sufficient condition for equilibrium investments to maximize surplus conditional on the matching...

This paper studies the aggregate economic effects of diversity policies such as affirmative action in college admission. If agents are constrained in the side payments they can make, the free market allocation displays excessive segregation relative to the first-best. Affirmative action policies...

Mobility depends essentially on investment, which often occurs in environments in which individuals match (school) or will match after investing (the labor market). Where partners can transfer surplus to each other only imperfectly (NTU), the pattern of matching will typically be inefficient,...

Institutions affect prospects for economic growth and development. In this paper a condition on the primitives determines whether an economy supports markets. Agents differ in land holdings, skill, and power. A competitive market assigns land efficiently to the skilled, not necessarily to the...

This paper argues that foreign direct investment in economies with credit market imperfections may increase their vulnerability to capital flow shocks. Due to better access to financial markets foreign firms can use different wage contracts than domestic ones. This alters the domestic wage...

We study an assignment-with-investment model to highlight a tradeoff between investment in human capital before (ex ante system) and after (ex post system) matching on the labor market. The ex post system is better at coordinating investment within firms whereas the ex ante system is better at...