Knowledge that Transforms

We study strategic information transmission in an organization consisting of an infinite sequence of individual decision-makers. Each decision-maker chooses an action and receives an informative but imperfect signal of the once-and-for-all realization of an unobserved state. The state affects all individuals' preferences over present and future decisions. Decision-makers do not directly observe the realized signals or actions of their predecessors. Instead, they must rely on cheap-talk messages in order to accumulate information about the state. Each decision-maker is therefore both a receiver of information with respect to his decision and a sender with respect to all future decisions. We show that if preferences are not perfectly aligned, “full learning” equilibria—ones in which the individuals' posterior beliefs eventually place full weight on the true state—do not exist. This is so both in the case of private communication, in which each individual only hears the message of his immediate predecessor, and in the case of public communication, in which a decision-maker hears the message of all his predecessors. Surprisingly, in the latter case full learning may be impossible even in the limit as all members of the organization become perfectly patient. We also consider the case where all individuals have access to a mediator who can work across time periods arbitrarily far apart. In this case, full learning equilibria exist.

How does trade liberalization affect wages? This is the first paper to consider in theory and data how the impact of final and intermediate input tariff cuts on workers' wages varies with the global engagement of their firm. Our model predicts that a fall in output tariffs lowers wages at import-competing firms, but boosts wages at exporting firms. Similarly, a fall in input tariffs raises wages at import-using firms relative to those at firms that only source locally. Using highly detailed Indonesian manufacturing census data for the period 1991 to 2000, we find considerable support for the model's predictions.

We investigate the choice of the bandwidth for the regression discontinuity estimator. We focus on estimation by local linear regression, which was shown to have attractive properties (Porter, J. 2003, “Estimation in the Regression Discontinuity Model” (unpublished, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin, Madison)). We derive the asymptotically optimal bandwidth under squared error loss. This optimal bandwidth depends on unknown functionals of the distribution of the data and we propose simple and consistent estimators for these functionals to obtain a fully data-driven bandwidth algorithm. We show that this bandwidth estimator is optimal according to the criterion of Li (1987, “Asymptotic Optimality for Cp, CL, Cross-validation and Generalized Cross-validation: Discrete Index Set”, Annals of Statistics, 15, 958–975), although it is not unique in the sense that alternative consistent estimators for the unknown functionals would lead to bandwidth estimators with the same optimality properties. We illustrate the proposed bandwidth, and the sensitivity to the choices made in our algorithm, by applying the methods to a data set previously analysed by Lee (2008, “Randomized Experiments from Non-random Selection in U.S. House Elections”, Journal of Econometrics, 142, 675–697) as well as by conducting a small simulation study.

People exaggerate the extent to which their information is shared with others. This paper introduces the concept of such information projection and provides a simple but widely applicable model. The key application describes a novel agency conflict in a frictionless learning environment. When monitoring with ex post information, biased evaluators exaggerate how much experts could have known ex ante and underestimate experts on average. Experts, to defend their reputations, are too eager to base predictions on ex ante information that substitutes for the information jurors independently learn ex post and too reluctant to base predictions on ex ante information that complements the information jurors independently learn ex post. Instruments that mitigate Bayesian agency conflicts are either ineffective or directly backfire. Applications to defensive medicine are discussed.

We analyze how firms renegotiate labor contracts to extract concessions from labor. While anecdotal evidence suggests that firms tend to renegotiate wages downward in times of financial distress, there is no empirical evidence that documents such renegotiation, its determinants, and its magnitude. This article attempts to fill this gap. Using a unique data set of airlines, which includes detailed information on wages and pension plans, we document an empirical link between airline financial distress, pension underfunding, and wage concessions.

We show that credit risk accounts for only a small fraction of yield spreads for investment-grade bonds of all maturities, with the fraction lower for bonds of shorter maturities, and that it accounts for a much higher fraction of yield spreads for high-yield bonds. This conclusion is shown to be robust across a wide class of structural models. We obtain such results by calibrating each of the models to be consistent with data on the historical default loss experience and equity risk premia, and demonstrating that different models predict similar credit risk premia under empirically reasonable parameter choices.

Global asset pricing models have failed to capture the cross-section of country equity returns. Emerging markets display robust positive pricing errors, and country-level characteristics play a role in pricing international equities. This paper offers a risk-based explanation for such asset pricing deviations. A world credit risk factor is significantly priced in the cross-section of country equity returns. In its presence, the positive pricing errors in emerging markets disappear and country-level characteristics no longer play a role. The risk premium for exposure to the credit risk factor is 80 basis points per month and has increased in recent years.

Government bonds comove more strongly with bond-like stocks: stocks of large, mature, low-volatility, profitable, dividend-paying firms that are neither high growth nor distressed. Variables that are derived from the yield curve that are already known to predict returns on bonds also predict returns on bond-like stocks; investor sentiment, a predictor of the cross-section of stock returns, also predicts excess bond returns. These relationships remain in place even when bonds and stocks become “decoupled” at the index level. They are driven by a combination of effects including correlations between real cash flows on bonds and bond-like stocks, correlations between their risk-based return premia, and periodic flights to quality.

In 2008, a group of uninsured low-income adults in Oregon was selected by lottery to be given the chance to apply for Medicaid. This lottery provides an opportunity to gauge the effects of expanding access to public health insurance on the health care use, financial strain, and health of low-income adults using a randomized controlled design. In the year after random assignment, the treatment group selected by the lottery was about 25 percentage points more likely to have insurance than the control group that was not selected. We find that in this first year, the treatment group had substantively and statistically significantly higher health care utilization (including primary and preventive care as well as hospitalizations), lower out-of-pocket medical expenditures and medical debt (including fewer bills sent to collection), and better self-reported physical and mental health than the control group.

Consumers need information to compare alternatives for markets to function efficiently. Recognizing this, public policies often pair competition with easy access to comparative information. The implicit assumption is that comparison friction—the wedge between the availability of comparative information and consumers' use of it—is inconsequential because when information is readily available, consumers will access this information and make effective choices. We examine the extent of comparison friction in the market for Medicare Part D prescription drug plans in the United States. In a randomized field experiment, an intervention group received a letter with personalized cost information. That information was readily available for free and widely advertised. However, this additional step—providing the information rather than having consumers actively access it—had an impact. Plan switching was 28% in the intervention group, versus 17% in the comparison group, and the intervention caused an average decline in predicted consumer cost of about $100 a year among letter recipients—roughly 5% of the cost in the comparison group. Our results suggest that comparison friction can be large even when the cost of acquiring information is small and may be relevant for a wide range of public policies that incorporate consumer choice.