This paper models individual choices of social groups and the formation of group identity, and examines the conditions with which the group identity reinforces the productivity of individuals. A social group is defined as a network that provides with a market for interactions to its members....

In an abstract model of division problems, we study division rules that are not manipulable through a reallocation of individual characteristic vectors within a coalition (e.g. reallocation of claims in bankruptcy problems). A coalition can be formed if members of the coalition are connected on...

This paper is motivated by a practical income (or wealth) taxation problem: For a public good economy where the provision of public goods is to be financed by income taxes collected from individuals, what is the optimal feasible tax mechanism when a social planner is relatively uninformed of the...

We consider a two-sided, finite-horizon search and matching model with heterogeneous types and complementarity between types. The quality of the pool of potential partners deteriorates as agents who have found mutually agreeable matches exit the market. When search is costless and all agents...

This paper investigates the interaction between education decisions by workers and investment decisions by firms in a random matching model with endogenous heterogeneity. I analyze the efficiency properties of the equilibrium and find that in the presence of search frictions and investment costs...

Consider the case of a firm with private valuation information bargaining with a supplier over the price and quantity of a good. If the firm and the supplier bargain directly, the bargaining outcome may not yield a first-best outcome due to the presence of information rents. The question we...

This paper develops a search-theoretic model of the cross-sectional distribution of asset returns. It abstracts from risk premia and focuses exclusively on liquidity. A float-adjusted return model (FARM) is derived, explaining the pricing of liquidity with a simple linear formula: In...

We develop a model in which firms set their salary levels before matching with workers. Wages fall relative to any competitive equilibrium while profits rise almost as much, implying little inefficiency. Furthermore, the best firms gain the most from the system while wages become compressed. We...

In this paper, we develop a search-based model of asset trading. We assume that investors differ in their horizons, and can invest in two identical assets. The asset markets are partially segmented: investors can search in only one market, but can decide which one. We show that there exist a...

This paper considers the "negotiation game" (Busch and Wen, 1995) which combines the features of two-person alternating offers bargaining and repeated games. Despite the forces of bargaining, the negotiation game in general admits a large number of equilibria some of which involve delay in...