Knowledge that Transforms

A single, long-run player plays a simultaneous-move stage game against a sequence of opponents who only play once, but observe all previous play. If there is a positive prior probability that the long-run player will always play the pure strategy he would most like to commit himself to (his Stackleberg strategy), then his payoff in any Nash equilibrium exceeds a bound that converges to the Stackleberg payoff as his discount factor approaches one. When the stage game is not simultaneous move, this result must be modified to account for the possibility that distinct strategies of the long-run player are observationally equivalent. Copyright 1989 by The Econometric Society.

This paper presents an empirical analysis of changes in individual earnings and hours ov&r time. Using longitudinal data from three panel surveys, we catalogue the main features of the covariance structure of changes in earnings and hours. We then present an interpretation of these features in terms of both a life-cycle labor supply model and a fixed-wage labor contract nDdel. Our major findings are: (1) there is a remarkable similarity in the covariance structure of earnings and hours changes across the three surveys; and (2) apart from simple measurement error, the major component of variance in earnings and hours affects earnings and hours equi-proportionately.