Knowledge that Transforms

An individual displays various preference orderings in different payoff-irrelevant circumstances. It is assumed that the variation in the observed preference orderings is the outcome of some cognitive process that distorts the underlying preferences of the individual. We introduce a framework for eliciting the individual's underlying preferences in such cases and then demonstrate it for two cognitive processes—satisficing and small assessment errors.

In this paper, we use an economic model to analyse data from a major randomized social experiment, namely PROGRESA in Mexico, and to evaluate its impact on school participation. We show the usefulness of using experimental data to estimate a structural economic model as well as the importance of a structural model in interpreting experimental results. The availability of the experiment also allows us to estimate the program's general equilibrium effects, which we then incorporate into our simulations. Our main findings are (i) the program's grant has a much stronger impact on school enrolment than an equivalent reduction in child wages; (ii) the program has a positive effect on the enrollment of children, especially after primary school; this result is well replicated by the parsimonious structural model; (iii) there are sizeable effects of the program on child wages, which, however, reduce the effectiveness of the program only marginally; and (iv) a revenue neutral change in the program that would increase the grant for secondary school children while eliminating for the primary school children would have a substantially larger effect on enrollment of the latter, while having minor effects on the former.

Empirical investigation of the quality interpretation of the Melitz (2003) model of firm heterogeneity and trade has been limited by the lack of direct data on quality. This paper matches firm-level export data with expert assessments of the quality of champagne producers to estimate the key parameters of that model. Quality monotonically increases firm-level prices, the probability of market entry, and export values. The estimated model—which calibrates the relative importance of firm-level quality and idiosyncratic demand—accurately predicts the average quality exported to each country. Simulations show that the data reject the polar alternatives where outcomes are based entirely on either quality or randomness.

We model a long-run relationship as an infinitely repeated game played by two equally patient agents. In each period, the agents play an extensive-form stage game of perfect information with either locally non-conflicting interests or strictly conflicting interests. There is incomplete information about the type of Player 1, while Player 2's type is commonly known. We show that a sufficiently patient Player 1 can leverage Player 2's uncertainty about his type to secure his highest pay-off, compatible with Player 2's individual rationality, in any perfect Bayesian equilibrium of the repeated game.

This paper develops new recursive, set based methods for studying repeated games with private monitoring. For any finite-state strategy profile, we find necessary and sufficient conditions for whether there exists a distribution over initial states such that the strategy, together with this distribution, form a correlated sequential equilibrium (CSE). Also, for any given correlation device for determining initial states (including degenerate cases where players' initial states are common knowledge), we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the correlation device and strategy to be a CSE, or in the case of a degenerate correlation device, for the strategy to be a sequential equilibrium. We also consider several applications. In these, we show that the methods are computationally feasible, and how to construct and verify equilibria in a secret price-setting game.

We study the behavioural foundation of interdependent preferences, where the outcomes of others affect the welfare of the decision maker. These preferences are taken as given, not derived from more primitive ones. Our aim is to establish an axiomatic foundation providing the link between observation of choices and a functional representation which is convenient, free of inconsistencies and can provide the basis for measurement. The dependence among preferences may take place in two conceptually different ways, expressing two different views of the nature of interdependent preferences. The first is Festinger's view that the evaluation of peers' outcomes is useful to improve individual choices by learning from the comparison. The second is Veblen's view that interdependent preferences keep track of social status derived from a social value attributed to the goods one consumes. Corresponding to these two different views, we have two different formulations. In the first, the decision maker values his outcomes and those of others on the basis of his own utility. In the second, he ranks outcomes according to a social value function. We give different axiomatic foundations to these two different, but complementary, views of the nature of the interdependence. On the basis of this axiomatic foundation, we build a behavioural theory of comparative statics within subjects and across subjects. We characterize preferences according to the relative importance assigned to gains and losses in social domain, that is pride and envy. This parallels the standard analysis of private gains and losses (as well as that of regret and relief). We give an axiomatic foundation of interpersonal comparison of preferences, ordering individuals according to their sensitivity to social ranking. These characterizations provide the behavioural foundation for applied analysis of market and game equilibria with interdependent preferences.

The paper presents a dynamic game where players contribute to a public bad, invest in technologies, and write incomplete contracts. Despite the n + 1 stocks in the model, the analysis is tractable and the symmetric Markov perfect equilibrium unique. If only the contribution levels are contractible, then investments are suboptimally small if the contract is short term or close to its expiration date. To encourage investments, the optimal contract is more ambitious if it is short term, and it is tougher to satisfy close to its expiration date and for players with small investment costs. If renegotiation is possible, such an incomplete contract implements the first-best. The framework helps to analyse emissions, investments, and international environmental agreements, and the results have important lessons for how to design a climate treaty.

We analyse political contests (campaigns) between two parties with opposing interests. Parties provide costly information to voters who choose a policy. The information flow is continuous and stops when both parties quit. Parties' actions are strategic substitutes: increasing one party's cost makes that party provide more and its opponent provide less information. For voters, parties' actions are complements and hence raising the advantaged party's cost may be beneficial. Asymmetric information adds a signalling component resulting in a belief threshold at which the informed party's decision to continue campaigning offsets other unfavourable information.

We discuss a simple model in which parents and children make investments in the children's education and investments for other purposes and parents can transfer cash to their children. We show that for an identifiable set of parent–child pairs, parents will rationally underinvest in their child's education. For these parent–child pairs, additional financial aid will increase educational attainment. The model highlights an important feature of higher education finance, the “expected family contribution” (EFC) that is based on income, assets, and other factors. The EFC is neither legally guaranteed nor universally offered: our model identifies the set of families that are disproportionately likely to not provide their full EFC. Using a common proxy for financial aid, we show, in data from the Health and Retirement Study, that financial aid increases the educational attainment of children whose families are more likely than others to underinvest in education. Financial aid has no effect on the educational attainment of children in other families. The theory and empirical evidence identifies a set of children who face quantitatively important borrowing constraints for higher education.

We estimate the effects of interstate highways on the growth of U.S. cities between 1983 and 2003. We find that a 10% increase in a city's initial stock of highways causes about a 1.5% increase in its employment over this 20 year period. To estimate a structural model of urban growth and transportation, we rely on an instrumental variables estimation that uses a 1947 plan of the interstate highway system, an 1898 map of railroads, and maps of the early explorations of the U.S. as instruments for 1983 highways.