A sender sells an object of unknown quality to a receiver who pays his expected value for it. Sender and receiver might hold different priors over quality. The sender commits to a monotone categorization of quality. We characterize the sender's optimal monotone categorization, the optimality of...

I develop a theory of intermediation in a market where agents meet bilaterally to trade and buyers cannot commit to payments. Some agents observe the past trading history of traders in the market. These informed agents can secure trades by punishing traders who previously defaulted. The...

We examine whether the Phelps-Koopmans theorem is valid in models with nonconvex production technologies. We show by example that a nonstationary path that converges to a capital stock above the smallest golden rule may indeed be efficient. This finding has the important implication that capital...

This paper studies the productivity impact of a contract change for tea pluckers in an Indian plantation. The contract, implemented at the end of a three-year cycle in which contracts are generally revised, was (a) the joint outcome of negotiations between twenty unions and plantations, (b)...

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, we develop the measurement theory of polarization for the case in which asset distributions can be described using density functions. Second, we provide sample estimators of population polarization indices that can be used to compare polarization...

Harsanyi (1974) criticized the von Neumann-Morgenstern notion of a stable set on the grounds that it implicitly assumes coalitions to be shortsighted in evaluating their prospects. He proposed a modification of the dominance relation to incorporate farsightedness. In doing so, however, Harsanyi...

This chapter surveys the sizable and growing literature on coalition formation. We refer to theories in which one or more groups of agents (“coalitions”) deliberately get together to jointly determine their actions. The defining idea of a coalition, in this chapter, is that of a group which...

A model of group decision-making is studied, in which one of two alternatives must be chosen. While group members differ in their valuations of the alternatives, everybody prefers some alternative to disagreement. Our model is distinguished by three features: private information regarding...

A game of love and hate is one in which a player's payoff is a function of her own action and the payoffs of other players. For each action profile, the associated payoff profile solves an interdependent utility system, and if that solution is bounded and unique for every profile we call the...

Relative to developed countries, there are far fewer women than men in parts of the developing world. Estimates suggest that more than 200 million women are demographically 'missing' worldwide. To explain the global 'missing women' phenomenon, research has mainly focused on excess female...