Economic theory offers two different approaches to the analysis of group formation and the role of institutions. The general equilibrium approach explores the influence of the economic environment on the formation of groups. The game theoretic approach runs in the opposite direction; it explores...

Home equity is the single largest component of household wealth for the majority of American households. Yet, there is virtually no way for the average family to insure itself against drops in home value and the ensuing destructive financial loss. Much of U.S. housing policy has focused on...

A celebrated result of Black (1984a) demonstrates the existence of a simple majority winner when preferences are single-peaked. The social choice follows the preferences of the median voter's most preferred outcome beats any alternative. However, this conclusion does not extend to elections in...

We present a new approach to the theory of imperfect competition and apply it to study price competition among differentiated products. The central result provides general conditions under which there exists a pure strategy price equilibrium for any number of firms producing any set of products....

Economic data engineering deliberately designs novel forms of data to solve fundamental identification problems associated with economic models of choice. I outline three diverse applications: to the economics of information; to life-cycle employment, earnings, and spending; and to public policy...

In Cournot's model of complements, the producers of A and B are bothmonopolists. This paper extends Cournot's model to allow for competitionbetween complements on one side of the market. Consider two complements,A and B, where the A + B bundle is valuable only when purchasedtogether. Good A is...

When we disclose information, we may also communicate information about information. The listener learns not only X but also that the speaker knows X. And the speaker also learns by speaking (for example, the speaker knows that the listener knows X). In this paper we present a series of examples...

In this paper, we show that a firm that sells a bundle of complementary products will have a substantial advantage over rivals who sell the component products individually. Furthermore, this advantage increases with the size of the bundle. Once there are four or more items, the bundle seller...

In this paper, we look at the case for bundling in an oligopolistic environment. We show that bundling is a particularly effective entry-deterrent strategy. A company that has market power in two goods, A and B, can, by bundling them together, make it harder for a rival with only one of these...