In welfare theory it is standard to pick the consumption stream that maximizes the welfare of the representative agent. We argue against this position, and show that a benevolent social planner will generally place a greater weight on future consumption than does the representative agent.

How much information should a policy maker pass on to an ill-informed citizen? In this paper, we address this classic question of Crawford and Sobel (1982)in a setting in which beliefs impact utility, as in Kreps and Porteus (1978). We show that this question cannot be answered using a utility...

After a long dormant period, lower Sixth Avenue in New York has undergone a rapid revitalization. The authors show that a simple search theoretic model with information spillovers can explain both the period of underuse and the rapid turnaround. The model reduces to a simple equation, which...

Popularity is self reinforcing. The attention garnered by popular options propels further interest in them. Yet rather than blindly follow the crowd, most pay attention to how well these items match their tastes. We model this role of social learning in guiding selective attention and market...

Many important markets, such as the labor market and the housing market, involve goods that are both indivisible and of budgetary significance. We introduce new graph theoretic objects ideally suited to analyzing such markets. We show that the minimum equilibrium price is characterized by a...

How significant are individual differences in self-control? Do these differences impact wealth accumulation? From where do they derive? Our survey-based measure of self-control provides insights into all three questions: 1.There are individual differences in self-control not only of a...

Prior research has established that consumption falls significantly at retirement. What is not known is the extent to which this fall is anticipated during the working years. Do working households expect such a large fall in consumption upon retirement, or are they taken by surprise? Using data...

In welfare theory it is standard to pick the consumption stream that maximizes the welfare of the representative agent. We argue against this position, and show that a benevolent social planner will generally place a greater weight on future consumption than does the representative agent. Our...