Can Google queries help predict economic activity?The answer depends on what you mean by "predict." Google Trends and Google Insights for Search provide a real time report on query volume, while economic data is typically released several days after the close of the month. Given this time lag,...

We describe a generalization of the Vickrey auction. Our mechanism extends the auction to implement efficient allocations for problems with more than one good, multiple units for the goods, and externalities. The primary restriction on preferences is that they must be quasilinear

This paper shows, using a standard CAPM model of security prices in a world market,that even small countries can affect the price of domestically issued risky securities, whilelarge countries can affect the prices of all securities. As a result, countries have the incentive to set tax rates such...

The term "network effects" has a clear meaning in economics but non-economists often confuse it with other concepts such as increasing returns to scale and learning-by-doing. This essay is an attempt to clear up some of this confusion

Many transactions are now computer mediated, making it possible for sellers to condition their pricing on the history of interactions with individual consumers. This paper investigates conditions under which price conditioning will or will not be used. Our simplest model involves rational...

Prediction markets are markets for contracts that yield payments based on the outcome of an uncertain future event, such as a presidential election. Using these markets as forecasting tools could substantially improve decision making in the private and public sectors. We argue that U.S....

In this paper, we argue that in designing government debt and tax-transfer policies, it is important to consider their implications for the allocation of risk between generations. There is no reason to presume that the market or the family can allocate risk efficiently to future generations,...

There is currently a great deal of interest in online competition, particularly involving large tech firms such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft (a group commonly known as “GAFAM”). In this essay I examine several issues involving these firms that have often come up both in...