This paper proposes a robust method for semiparametric identification and estimation in panel multinomial choice models, where we allow for infinite-dimensional fixed effects that enter into consumer utilities in an additively nonseparable way, thus incorporating rich forms of unobserved heterogeneity. Our identification strategy exploits multivariate monotonicity in parametric indices, and uses the logical contraposition of an intertemporal inequality on choice probabilities to obtain identifying restrictions. We provide a consistent estimation procedure, and demonstrate the practical advantages of our method with Monte Carlo simulations and an empirical illustration on popcorn sales with the NielsenIQ data.

This article considers the effect of contracting limitations in risk-sharing networks, arising for example from observability, verifiability, complexity, or cultural constraints. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for Pareto efficiency under these constraints in a general setting, and we provide an explicit characterization of Pareto efficient bilateral transfer profiles under CARA utility and normally distributed endowments. Our model predicts that network centrality is positively correlated with consumption volatility, as more central agents become quasi-insurance providers to more peripheral agents. The proposed framework has important implications for the empirical specification of risk-sharing tests, allowing for local risk-sharing groups that overlap within the village network.

We propose a restrictiveness measure for economic models based on how well they fit predefined synthetic data. This measure, together with a measure for how well the model fits real data, outlines a Pareto frontier, where models that rule out more regularities, yet capture the regularities that are present in real data, are preferred. To illustrate our approach, we evaluate the restrictiveness of models in two laboratory settings—certainty equivalents and initial play—and one field setting—takeup of microfinance in Indian villages. The restrictiveness measure reveals insights about each, including that some economic models with only a few parameters are very flexible.