Psychologists and economists have argued that rewards often have hidden costs. One possible reason is that the principal may have incentives to offer higher rewards when she knows the task is difficult. Our experiment tests if high rewards embody such bad news and if this is correctly perceived...

Economists use relational or reputational concerns to explain the implicit enforcement of contracts. Both mechanisms require special assumptions concerning contracting parties' identities; in particular, these assumptions would not hold in one-period settings in which outcomes cannot affect...

Both psychologists and economists have argued that rewards often have hidden costs. One possible reason is that the principal may have incentives to offer higher rewards when she knows the task to be difficult. Our experiment tests if high rewards embody such bad news and if this is perceived by...

This thesis is a collection of three essays on labor economics from a macroeconomic prospective. Chapter 1 discusses imperfect information, self-selection and the market for higher education. It explores how the steady trends in increased tuition costs, college enrollment and returns to...

This thesis consists of three chapters studying dynamic economies in general equilibrium. The first chapter considers an economy in business cycles with potentially imperfect financial markets. The second chapter investigates an economy in its balanced growth path with heterogeneous firms. The...

This dissertation consists of three chapters exploring the role of incomplete information and learning in elections. The first chapter examines the dynamics of voter learning about candidate ability in repeated elections. The dynamic process of belief revision gives rise to incentives that vary...