We provide a welfare analysis of the deadline effect in a repeated negotiation game in which costly delay can produce information that improves the quality of the decision. We characterize equilibrium strategies and the evolution of beliefs in continuous time, and study how the length of the...

Though individuals prefer high-quality peers, there are advantages to being high up in the pecking order within a group. In this environment, sorting of agents yields an overlapping interval structure in the type space. Segregation and mixing coexist in a stable equilibrium. With transfers, this...

Two organizations compete for high quality agents from a fixed population of heterogeneous qualities by designing how to distribute their resources among members according to their quality ranking. The peer effect induces both organizations to spend the bulk of their resources on higher ranks in...

In markets for entry-level professionals, the insurance motive drives some participants to sign early contracts. The rush to early contracting can be self-fulfilling, as both its effect on expectations about demand-supply balance in the subsequent spot market and the effect on it from changes in...