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Articles 631 - 660 of 2930
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Optimal Auction Design In A Common Value Model, Dirk Bergemann, Benjamin Brooks, Stephen Morris
Optimal Auction Design In A Common Value Model, Dirk Bergemann, Benjamin Brooks, Stephen Morris
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We study auction design when bidders have a pure common value equal to the maximum of their independent signals. In the revenue maximizing mechanism, each bidder makes a payment that is independent of his signal and the allocation discriminates in favor of bidders with lower signals. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition under which the optimal mechanism reduces to a posted price under which all bidders are equally likely to get the good. This model of pure common values can equivalently be interpreted as model of resale: the bidders have independent private values at the auction stage, and the …
Informationally Robust Optimal Auction Design, Dirk Bergemann, Benjamin Brooks, Stephen Morris
Informationally Robust Optimal Auction Design, Dirk Bergemann, Benjamin Brooks, Stephen Morris
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
A single unit of a good is to be sold by auction to one of two buyers. The good has either a high value or a low value, with known prior probabilities. The designer of the auction knows the prior over values but is uncertain about the correct model of the buyers’ beliefs. The designer evaluates a given auction design by the lowest expected revenue that would be generated across all models of buyers’ information that are consistent with the common prior and across all Bayesian equilibria. An optimal auction for such a seller is constructed, as is a worst-case …
Sequentially Testing Polynomial Model Hypotheses Using Power Transforms Of Regressors, Jin Seo Cho, Peter C.B. Phillips
Sequentially Testing Polynomial Model Hypotheses Using Power Transforms Of Regressors, Jin Seo Cho, Peter C.B. Phillips
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We provide a methodology for testing a polynomial model hypothesis by extending the approach and results of Baek, Cho, and Phillips (2015; Journal of Econometrics; BCP) that tests for neglected nonlinearity using power transforms of regressors against arbitrary nonlinearity. We examine and generalize the BCP quasi-likelihood ratio test dealing with the multifold identification problem that arises under the null of the polynomial model. The approach leads to convenient asymptotic theory for inference, has omnibus power against general nonlinear alternatives, and allows estimation of an unknown polynomial degree in a model by way of sequential testing, a technique that is useful …
Belief-Free Rationalizability And Informational Robustness, Dirk Bergemann, Stephen Morris
Belief-Free Rationalizability And Informational Robustness, Dirk Bergemann, Stephen Morris
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We propose an incomplete information analogue of rationalizability. An action is said to be belief-free rationalizable if it survives the following iterated deletion process. At each stage, we delete actions for a type of a player that are not a best response to some conjecture that puts weight only on profiles of types of other players and states that that type thinks possible, combined with actions of those types that have survived so far. We describe a number of applications. This solution concept characterizes the implications of equilibrium when a player is known to have some private information but may …
Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, And The Value Of Online Retail, Thomas W. Quan, Kevin R. Williams
Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, And The Value Of Online Retail, Thomas W. Quan, Kevin R. Williams
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Online retail gives consumers access to an astonishing variety of products. However, the additional value created by this variety depends on the extent to which local retailers already satisfy local demand. To quantify the gains and account for local demand, we use detailed data from an online retailer and propose methodology to address a common issue in such data - sparsity of local sales due to sampling and a significant number of local zeros. Our estimates indicate products face substantial demand heterogeneity across markets; as a result, we find gains from online variety that are 30% lower than previous studies.
Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, And The Value Of Online Retail, Thomas W. Quan, Kevin R. Williams
Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, And The Value Of Online Retail, Thomas W. Quan, Kevin R. Williams
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Online retail gives consumers access to an astonishing variety of products. However, the additional value created by this variety depends on the extent to which local retailers already satisfy local demand. To quantify the gains and account for local demand, we use detailed data from an online retailer and propose methodology to address a common issue in such data-sparsity of local sales due to sampling and a significant number of local zeros. Our estimates indicate products face substantial demand heterogeneity across markets; as a result, we find gains from online variety that are 45% lower than previous studies.
Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, And The Value Of Online Retail, Thomas W. Quan, Kevin R. Williams
Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, And The Value Of Online Retail, Thomas W. Quan, Kevin R. Williams
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Online retail gives consumers access to an astonishing variety of products. However, the additional value created by this variety depends on the extent to which local retailers already satisfy local demand. To quantify the gains and account for local demand, we use detailed data from an online retailer and propose methodology to address a common issue in such data - sparsity of local sales due to sampling and a significant number of local zeros. Our estimates indicate products face substantial demand heterogeneity across markets; as a result, we find gains from online variety that are 30% lower than previous studies.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Money And Financial Institutions Essay 2: The Exchange Economy, Money, And Markets, Martin Shubik
Three Essays On The Theory Of Money And Financial Institutions Essay 2: The Exchange Economy, Money, And Markets, Martin Shubik
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This essay is the second of three. The first is nontechnical and in part autobiographical describing the evolution of my approach to developing a micro economic theory of money and financial institutions. This essay is devoted to a mathematical sketch of a closed economic exchange system with general equilibrium GE and rational expectations RE viewed game theoretically. It squeezes the last drop out of statics and an illusory dynamics in the form of the RE extension of GE with no other externalities beyond money and markets. The third essay builds on process models adding uncertainty,innovation, an active government, nonsymmetric information …
Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, And The Value Of Online Retail, Thomas W. Quan, Kevin R. Williams
Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, And The Value Of Online Retail, Thomas W. Quan, Kevin R. Williams
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Online retail gives consumers access to an astonishing variety of products. However, the additional value created by this variety depends on the extent to which local retailers already satisfy local demand. To quantify the gains and account for local demand, we use detailed data from an online retailer and propose methodology to address a common issue in such data-sparsity of local sales due to sampling and a significant number of local zeros. Our estimates indicate products face substantial demand heterogeneity across markets; as a result, we find gains from online variety that are 45% lower than previous studies.
Aggregation Of Preferences And The Structure Of Decisive Sets, Donald J. Brown
Aggregation Of Preferences And The Structure Of Decisive Sets, Donald J. Brown
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This is the manuscript for the talk that I presented at the Koerner Center’s Intellectual Trajectories Seminar in September 2016.
Cooperative And Noncooperative Solutions, And The 'Game Within A Game', Martin Shubik, Michael R. Powers
Cooperative And Noncooperative Solutions, And The 'Game Within A Game', Martin Shubik, Michael R. Powers
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
In a previous essay, we developed a simple (in)efficiency measure for matrix games. We now address the difficulties encountered in assessing the usefulness and accuracy of such a measure.
Nonlinear Tax Incidence And Optimal Taxation In General Equilibrium, Dominik Sachs, Aleh Tsyvinski, Nicolas Werquin
Nonlinear Tax Incidence And Optimal Taxation In General Equilibrium, Dominik Sachs, Aleh Tsyvinski, Nicolas Werquin
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We study the incidence and the optimal design of nonlinear income taxes in a Mirrleesian economy with a continuum of endogenous wages. We characterize analytically the incidence of any tax reform by showing that one can mathematically formalize this problem as an integral equation. For a CES production function, we show theoretically and numerically that the general equilibrium forces raise the revenue gains from increasing the progressivity of the U.S. tax schedule. This result is reinforced in the case of a Translog technology where closer skill types are stronger substitutes. We then characterize the optimum tax schedule, and derive a …
Uniqueness And Stability Of Equilibrium In Economies With Two Goods, John Geanakoplos, Kieran James Walsh
Uniqueness And Stability Of Equilibrium In Economies With Two Goods, John Geanakoplos, Kieran James Walsh
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We offer new sufficient conditions ensuring demand is downward sloping local to equilibrium. It follows that equilibrium is unique and stable in the sense that rising supply implies falling prices. In our setting, there are two goods, which we interpret as consumption in different time periods, and many impatience types. Agents have the same Bernoulli utility function, but the types differ arbitrarily in time preference. Our main result is that if endowments are identical and utility displays nonincreasing absolute risk aversion, then market demand is strictly downward sloping local to equilibrium. We discuss implications for the Diamond-Dybvig literature.
The Design And Price Of Information, Dirk Bergemann, Alessandro Bonatti, Alex Smolin
The Design And Price Of Information, Dirk Bergemann, Alessandro Bonatti, Alex Smolin
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
A data buyer faces a decision problem under uncertainty. He can augment his initial private information with supplemental data from a data seller. His willingness to pay for supplemental data is determined by the quality of his initial private information. The data seller optimally offers a menu of statistical experiments. We establish the properties that any revenue-maximizing menu of experiments must satisfy. Every experiment is a non-dispersed stochastic matrix, and every menu contains a fully informative experiment. In the cases of binary states and actions, or binary types, we provide an explicit construction of the optimal menu of experiments.
Contracting With Word-Of-Mouth Management, Yuichiro Kamada, Aniko Öry (Oery)
Contracting With Word-Of-Mouth Management, Yuichiro Kamada, Aniko Öry (Oery)
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We propose a model for word of mouth (WoM) management where a firm has two tools at hand: referral rewards and offering a free contract. Current customers’ incentives to engage in WoM can affect the contracting problem of a rm in the presence of positive externalities of users. Formally, we consider a classic Maskin-Riley contracting problem for the receiver of WoM where the firm can pay the sender’s referral rewards and a sender experiences positive externalities if the receiver adopts. A free contract can incentivize WoM because the higher adoption probability increases the expected externalities that the sender receives. We …
The Design And Price Of Information, Dirk Bergemann, Alessandro Bonatti, Alex Smolin
The Design And Price Of Information, Dirk Bergemann, Alessandro Bonatti, Alex Smolin
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper analyzes the trade of information between a data buyer and a data seller. The data buyer faces a decision problem under uncertainty and seeks to augment his initial private information with supplemental data. The data seller is uncertain about the willingness-to-pay of the data buyer due to this private information. The data seller optimally offers a menu of (Blackwell) experiments as statistical tests to the data buyer. The seller exploits differences in the beliefs of the buyer’s types to reduce information rents while limiting the surplus that must be sacrificed to provide incentives.
Contracting With Word-Of-Mouth Management, Yuichiro Kamada, Aniko Öry (Oery)
Contracting With Word-Of-Mouth Management, Yuichiro Kamada, Aniko Öry (Oery)
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We incorporate word of mouth (WoM) in a classic Maskin-Riley contracting problem, allowing for referral rewards to senders of WoM. Current customers’ incentives to engage in WoM can affect the contracting problem of a firm in the presence of positive externalities of users. We fully characterize the optimal contract scheme and provide comparative statics. In particular, we show that offering a free contract is optimal only if the fraction of premium users in the population is small. The reason is that by offering a free product, the firm can incentivize senders to talk by increasing expected externalities that they receive …
Contracting With Word-Of-Mouth Management, Yuichiro Kamada, Aniko Öry (Oery)
Contracting With Word-Of-Mouth Management, Yuichiro Kamada, Aniko Öry (Oery)
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We incorporate word of mouth (WoM) in a classic Maskin-Riley contracting problem, allowing for referral rewards to senders of WoM. Current customers’ incentives to engage in WoM can affect the contracting problem of a firm in the presence of positive externalities of users. We fully characterize the optimal contract scheme and provide other comparative statics. In particular, we show that offering a free contract is optimal only if the fraction of premium users in the population is small. The reason is that by offering a free product, the firm can incentivize senders to talk by increasing expected externalities that they …
Consumers On A Leash: Advertised Sales And Intertemporal Price Discrimination, Aniko Öry
Consumers On A Leash: Advertised Sales And Intertemporal Price Discrimination, Aniko Öry
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
The Internet allows sellers to track “window shoppers,” consumers who look but do not buy, and to lure them back later by targeting them with an advertised sale. This new technology thus facilitates intertemporal price discrimination, but simultaneously makes it too easy for a seller to undercut her regular price. Because buyers know they could be lured back, the seller is forced to set a lower regular price. Advertising costs can, therefore, serve as a form of commitment: a seller can actually benefit from higher costs of advertising. Based on this framework, the impact of commitment on prices, profits, and …
Common Ownership, Competition, And Top Management Incentives, Miguel Antón, Florian Ederer, Mireia Giné, Martin Schmalz
Common Ownership, Competition, And Top Management Incentives, Miguel Antón, Florian Ederer, Mireia Giné, Martin Schmalz
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Standard corporate finance theories assume the absence of strategic product market interactions or that shareholders don’t diversify across industry rivals; the optimal incentive contract features pay-for-performance relative to industry peers. Empirical evidence, by contrast, indicates managers are rewarded for rivals’ performance as well as for their own. We propose common ownership of natural competitors by the same investors as an explanation. We show theoretically and empirically that executives are paid less for own performance and more for rivals’ performance when the industry is more commonly owned. The growth of common ownership also helps explain the increase in CEO pay over …
Simple And Honest Confidence Intervals In Nonparametric Regression, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár
Simple And Honest Confidence Intervals In Nonparametric Regression, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We consider the problem of constructing honest confidence intervals (CIs) for a scalar parameter of interest, such as the regression discontinuity parameter, in nonparametric regression based on kernel or local polynomial estimators. To ensure that our CIs are honest, we derive and tabulate novel critical values that take into account the possible bias of the estimator upon which the CIs are based. We give sharp efficiency bounds of using different kernels, and derive the optimal bandwidth for constructing honest CIs. We show that using the bandwidth that minimizes the maximum meansquared error results in CIs that are nearly efficient and …
Doing More When You're Running Late: Applying Marginal Treatment Effect Methods To Examine Treatment Effect Heterogeneity In Experiments, Amanda E. Kowalski
Doing More When You're Running Late: Applying Marginal Treatment Effect Methods To Examine Treatment Effect Heterogeneity In Experiments, Amanda E. Kowalski
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
I examine treatment effect heterogeneity within an experiment to inform external validity. The local average treatment effect (LATE) gives an average treatment effect for compliers. I bound and estimate average treatment effects for always takers and never takers by extending marginal treatment effect methods. I use these methods to separate selection from treatment effect heterogeneity, generalizing the comparison of OLS to LATE. Applying these methods to the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, I find that the treatment effect of insurance on emergency room utilization decreases from always takers to compliers to never takers. Previous utilization explains a large share of the …
Simple And Honest Confidence Intervals In Nonparametric Regression, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár
Simple And Honest Confidence Intervals In Nonparametric Regression, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We consider the problem of constructing honest confidence intervals (CIs) for a scalar parameter of interest, such as the regression discontinuity parameter, in nonparametric regression based on kernel or local polynomial estimators. To ensure that our CIs are honest, we derive and tabulate novel critical values that take into account the possible bias of the estimator upon which the CIs are based. We give sharp efficiency bounds of using different kernels, and derive the optimal bandwidth for constructing honest CIs. We show that using the bandwidth that minimizes the maximum mean-squared error results in CIs that are nearly efficient and …
Simple And Honest Confidence Intervals In Nonparametric Regression, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár
Simple And Honest Confidence Intervals In Nonparametric Regression, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We consider the problem of constructing honest confidence intervals (CIs) for a scalar parameter of interest, such as the regression discontinuity parameter, in nonparametric regression based on kernel or local polynomial estimators. To ensure that our CIs are honest, we derive novel critical values that take into account the possible bias of the estimator upon which the CIs are based. We show that this approach leads to CIs that are more efficient than conventional CIs that achieve coverage by undersmoothing or subtracting an estimate of the bias. We give sharp efficiency bounds of using different kernels, and derive the optimal …
Simple And Honest Confidence Intervals In Nonparametric Regression, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár
Simple And Honest Confidence Intervals In Nonparametric Regression, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We consider the problem of constructing honest confidence intervals (CIs) for a scalar parameter of interest, such as the regression discontinuity parameter, in nonparametric regression based on kernel or local polynomial estimators. To ensure that our CIs are honest, we derive and tabulate novel critical values that take into account the possible bias of the estimator upon which the CIs are based. We show that this approach leads to CIs that are more efficient than conventional CIs that achieve coverage by undersmoothing or subtracting an estimate of the bias. We give sharp efficiency bounds of using different kernels, and derive …
The Incidence Of Carbon Taxes In U.S. Manufacturing: Lessons From Energy Cost Pass-Through, Sharat Ganapati, Joseph S. Shapiro, Reed Walker
The Incidence Of Carbon Taxes In U.S. Manufacturing: Lessons From Energy Cost Pass-Through, Sharat Ganapati, Joseph S. Shapiro, Reed Walker
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper studies how changes in energy input costs for U.S. manufacturers affect the relative welfare of manufacturing producers and consumers (i.e., incidence). In doing so, we develop a novel partial equilibrium methodology designed to estimate the incidence of input taxes. This method simultaneously accounts for three determinants of incidence that are typically studied in isolation: incomplete pass-through of input costs, differences in industry competitiveness, and substitution amongst inputs used for production. We apply this methodology to a set of U.S. manufacturing industries for which we observe plant-level unit prices and input choices. We find that about 70 percent of …
Expected Worth For 2 × 2 Matrix Games With Variable Grid Sizes, Michael R. Powers, Martin Shubik, Wen Wang
Expected Worth For 2 × 2 Matrix Games With Variable Grid Sizes, Michael R. Powers, Martin Shubik, Wen Wang
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We offer a detailed examination of a broad class of 2 × 2 matrix games as a first step toward considering measures of resource distribution and efficiency of outcomes. In the present essay, only noncooperative equilibria and entropic outcomes are considered, and a crude measure of efficiency employed. Other solution concepts and the formal construction of an efficiency index will be addressed in a companion paper.
Expected Worth For 2 × 2 Matrix Games With Variable Grid Sizes, Michael R. Powers, Martin Shubik, Wen Wang
Expected Worth For 2 × 2 Matrix Games With Variable Grid Sizes, Michael R. Powers, Martin Shubik, Wen Wang
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We offer a detailed examination of a broad class of 2 x 2 matrix games as a first step toward considering measures of resource distribution and efficiency of outcomes. In the present essay, only noncooperative equilibria and entropic outcomes are considered, and a crude measure of efficiency employed. Other solution concepts and the formal construction of an efficiency index will be addressed in a companion paper.
Mcmc Confidence Sets For Identified Sets, Xiaohong Chen, Timothy M. Christensen, Elie Tamer
Mcmc Confidence Sets For Identified Sets, Xiaohong Chen, Timothy M. Christensen, Elie Tamer
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
In complicated/nonlinear parametric models, it is generally hard to determine whether the model parameters are (globally) point identified. We provide computationally attractive procedures to construct confidence sets (CSs) for identified sets of parameters in econometric models defined through a likelihood or a vector of moments. The CSs for the identified set or for a function of the identified set (such as a subvector) are based on inverting an optimal sample criterion (such as likelihood or continuously updated GMM), where the cutoff values are computed via Monte Carlo simulations directly from a quasi posterior distribution of the criterion. We establish new …
Optimal Inference In A Class Of Regression Models, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár
Optimal Inference In A Class Of Regression Models, Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We consider the problem of constructing confidence intervals (CIs) for a linear functional of a regression function, such as its value at a point, the regression discontinuity parameter, or a regression coefficient in a linear or partly linear regression. Our main assumption is that the regression function is known to lie in a convex function class, which covers most smoothness and/or shape assumptions used in econometrics. We derive finite-sample optimal CIs and sharp efficiency bounds under normal errors with known variance. We show that these results translate to uniform (over the function class) asymptotic results when the error distribution is …