I introduce and study dynamic persuasion mechanisms. A principal privately observes the evolution of a stochastic process and sends messages over time to an agent. The agent takes actions in each period based on her beliefs about the state of the process and the principal wishes to influence the agent’s action. I characterize the optimal persuasion mechanism and show how to derive it in applications. I then consider the extension to multiple agents where higher-order beliefs matter. (JEL D82, D83)

Aggregate real wages exhibit less procyclicality than most macroeconomic models predict. We use 35 years of Current Population Survey data to confirm that the puzzling behavior of wages largely owes to changes in the composition of the employed over the business cycle. This composition effect relates to changes in both the number and the relative wage levels of those entering and exiting. The changing gap in wages of entrants and exiters is especially important for the unemployed. A large part of this wage gap is due to differences in average Mincer residuals between entrants and exiters.

We develop a quantifiable multi-country sourcing model in which firms self-select into importing based on their productivity and country-specific variables. In contrast to canonical export models where firm profits are additively separable across destination markets, global sourcing decisions naturally interact through the firm's cost function. We show that, under an empirically relevant condition, selection into importing exhibits complementarities across source markets. We exploit these complementarities to solve the firm's problem and estimate the model. Comparing counterfactual predictions to reduced-form evidence highlights the importance of interdependencies in firms' sourcing decisions across markets, which generate heterogeneous domestic sourcing responses to trade shocks. (JEL D24, F14, F23, L14, L21)

A new basis for an international poverty measurement is proposed based on linear programming for specifying the least cost diet and explicit budgeting for nonfood spending. This approach is superior to the World Bank's $1-a-day line because it is (i) clearly related to survival and well being; (ii) comparable across time and space since the same nutritional requirements are used everywhere while nonfood spending is tailored to climate; (iii) adjusts consumption patterns to local prices; (iv) presents no index number problems since solutions are always in local prices; and (v) requires only readily available information. The new approach implies much more poverty than the World Bank's, especially in Asia. (JEL C61, I14, I31, I32, O15)

This paper develops a method for forecasting the marginal abatement cost (MAC) of climate policy using three features of the failed Waxman-Markey bill. First, the MAC is revealed by the price of traded permits. Second, the permit price is estimated using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) comparing stock returns of firms on either side of the policy's free permit cutoff rule. Third, because Waxman-Markey was never implemented, I extend the RDD approach to incorporate prediction market prices which normalize estimates by policy realization probabilities. A final bounding analysis recovers a MAC range of $5 to $19 per ton CO 2 e. (JEL G12, G14, Q52, Q54, Q58)