This paper presents a theory of rent seeking within farmer cooperatives in which inequality of asset ownership affects relative control rights of different groups of members. The two key assumptions are constraints on lump-sum transfers from poorer members and disproportionate control rights...

A single principal interacts with several agents, offering them contracts. The crucial assumption of this paper is that the outside-option payoffs of the agents depend positively on how many "free agents" there are (these are agents who are not under contract). We study how such a principal,...

A principal and an agent enter into a sequence of agreements. The principal faces an interim participation constraint at each date, but can commit to the current agreement; in contrast, the agent has the opportunity to renege on the current agreement. We study the time structure of agreement...

We study informal insurance within communities, explicitly recognizing the possibility that subgroups of individuals may destabilize insurance arrangements among the larger group. We therefore consider self-enforcing risk-sharing agreements that are robust not only to single-person deviations...

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...

This article reviews the literature on aspirations in economics, with a particular focus on socially determined aspirations. The core theory builds on two fundamental principles: (a) Aspirations can serve to inspire, but still higher aspirations can lead to frustration and resentment; and (b)...

Extending Konishi and Ray (2003), we study coalitional bargaining in "real time", a situation in which coalition formation is interwined with the ongoing receipt of payoffs. A particular focus is placed on the case in which agreements are permanently binding, so that they can be changed only...

This paper studies bilateral insurance schemes across networks of individuals. While transfers are based on social norms, each individual must have the incentive to abide by those norms, and so we investigate the structure of stable insurance networks, in which self-enforcement constraints are...

We provide an interim report on the Indian lockdown provoked by the covid-19 pandemic. The main topics — ranging from the philosophy of lockdown to the provision of relief measures — transcend the Indian case. A recurrent theme is the enormous visibility of covid-19 deaths worldwide, with...

This paper explores conditions under which the ability to commit in a principal-agent relationship creates no additional benefit for the principal, over and above simultaneous interaction without commitment. A central assumption is that the principal’s payoff depends only on the payoff to the...