A literal interpretation of neo-classical consumer theory suggests that the consumer solves a very complex problem. In the presence of indivisible goods, the consumer problem is NP-Hard, and it appears unlikely that it can be optimally solved by humans. An alternative approach is suggested,...

“Buy local” arrangements encourage members of a community or group to patronize one another rather than the external economy. They range from formal mechanisms such as local currencies to informal “I’ll buy from you if you buy from me” arrangements, and are often championed on social...

People often wonder why economists analyze models whose assumptions are known to be false, while economists feel that they learn a great deal from such exercises. We suggest that part of the knowledge generated by academic economists is case-based rather than rule-based. That is, instead of...

Savage (1954) provided a set of axioms on preferences over acts that were equivalent to the existence of an expected utility representation. We show that in addition to this representation, there is a continuum of other .expected utility.representations in which for any act, the probability...

Different markets are cleared by different types of prices---seller-specific prices that are uniform across buyers in some markets, and personalized prices tailored to the buyer in others. We examine a setting in which buyers and sellers make investments before matching in a competitive market....

There is a large repeated games literature illustrating how future interactions provide incentives for cooperation. Much of this literature assumes public monitoring: players always observe precisely the same thing. Even slight deviations from public monitoring to private monitoring that...

What determines which assets are used in transactions? We develop a framework where the extent to which assets are recognizable determines the extent to which they are acceptable in exchange - i.e., their liquidity. We analyze the effects of monetary policy on asset markets. Recognizability and...

We consider repeated games with private monitoring that are .close. to repeated games with public/perfect monitoring. A private monitoring information structure is close to a public monitoring information structure when private signals can generate approximately the same distribution of the...

We analyze a model in which agents make investments and then match into pairs to create a surplus. The agents can make transfers to reallocate their pretransfer ownership claims on the surplus. Mailath, Postlewaite, and Samuelson (2013) showed that when investments are unobservable, equilibrium...

Maximizing subjective expected utility is the classic model of decision-making under uncertainty. Savage (1954) provides axioms on preference over acts that are equivalent to the existence of a subjective expected utility representation, and further establishes that such a representation is...