"Much of the policy discussion of labor market institutions has been at the margin, with proposals to tighten unemployment benefits, reduce employment protection, and so on. There has been little discussion however of what the ultimate goal and architecture should be. The paper focuses on...

Starting with a simple benchmark, we first derive the characteristics of optimal employment protection. In the benchmark, employment protection takes the form of layoff taxes, used to finance unemployment benefits. We then consider a number of extensions, and show how this principle must be...

We analyze social and economic phenomena involving beliefs which people value and invest in, for affective or functional reasons. Individuals are at times uncertain about their own deep values and infer them from their past choices, which then come to define who they are". Identity investments...

This paper analyzes how private decisions and public policies are shaped by personal and societal preferences (values), material or other explicit incentives (laws) and social sanctions or rewards (norms). It first examines how honor, stigma and social norms arise from individuals' behaviors and...