This paper proposes a semi-parametric method to uncover the distribution of bidders’ private information in the market for highway procurement when unobserved auction heterogeneity is present. I derive sufficient conditions under which the model is identified and show that the estimation...

This paper investigates the empirical importance of allowing for multi-dimensional sources of unobserved heterogeneity in auction models with private information. It in turn develops the estimation procedure that recovers the distribution of private information in the presence of two distinct...

We present and empirically implement an equilibrium labor market search model where risk averse workers facing medical expenditure shocks are matched with firms making health insurance coverage decisions. Our model delivers a rich set of predictions that can account for a wide variety of...

Previous research has shown that the reasons for lapsation have important implications regarding the effects of the emerging life settlement market on consumer welfare. We present and empirically implement a dynamic discrete choice model of life insurance decisions to assess the importance of...

We study the effect of the life settlement market on the structure of long term contracts offered by the primary market for life insurance, as well as the effect on consumer welfare, using a dynamic model of life insurance with one sided commitment and bequest-driven lapsation. We show that the...

We present a theoretical model of airport searches. The model extends previous work in the area in that detection conditional on search is imperfect. The hit rates tests for racial bias developed in Knowles, Persico, and Todd (2001) is shown to apply even in the presence of imperfections in...

This paper studies the problem of incentivizing an agent in an innovation project when the progress of innovation is known only to the agent. I assume the success of innovation requires an intermediate breakthrough and a final breakthrough, with only the latter being observed by the principal....

We establish conditions under which an English auction for an indivisible risky asset has an efficient ex post equilibrium when the bidders are heterogeneous in both their exposures to, and their attitudes toward, the ensuing risk the asset will generate for the winning bidder. Each bidder's...

We showed in McLean and Postlewaite (2014) that when agents are informationally small, there exist small modifications to VCG mechanisms in interdependent value problems that restore incentive compatibility. This paper presents a two-stage mechanism that similarly restores incentive...

This paper demonstrates that a misspecified model of information processing interferes with long-run learning and offers an explanation for why individuals may continue to choose an inefficient action, despite sufficient public information to learn the true state. I consider a social learning...