The foundations of incomplete contracts have been questioned using or extending the subgame perfect implementation approach of Moore and Repullo (1988). We consider the robustness of subgame perfect implementation to the introduction of small amounts of asymmetric information. We show that...

This paper studies whether agents must agglomerate at a single location in a class of models of two-sided interaction. In these models there is an increasing returns effect that favors agglomeration, but also a crowding or market-impact effect that makes agents prefer to be in a market with...

This paper studies the interactions between an individual's self esteem and his social environment in the workplace, at school, and in personal relationships. Because a person generally has only imperfect knowledge of his own abilities, people who derive benefits from his performance (parent,...

This paper analyzes the possibility and the consequences of rational bubbles in a dy- namic economy where financially constrained firms demand and supply liquidity. Bub- bles are more likely to emerge, the scarcer the supply of outside liquidity and the more limited the pledgeability of...

The paper elicits a mechanism by which private leverage choices exhibit strategic complementarities through the reaction of monetary policy. When everyone engages in maturity transformation, authorities have little choice but facilitating refinancing. In turn, refusing to adopt a risky balance...

The sub-prime crisis has shown a harsh spotlight on the practices of securities underwriters, which provided too many complex securities that proved to ultimately have little value. This uproar calls attention to the fact that the literature on intermediaries has carefully analyzed their...

We explore the link between liquidity and investment in a an overlapping generation model with a standard asynchronicity between firms' access to and need for cash. Imperfect pledgeability hinders the capacity of capital markets to resolve this asynchronicity, resulting in credit rationing and a...

We develop a theory of prosocial behavior that combines heterogeneity in individual altruism and greed with concerns for social reputation or self-respect. Rewards or punishments (whether material or image-related) create doubt about the true motive for which good deeds are performed and this...

International surveys reveal wide differences between the views held in different countries concerning the causes of wealth or poverty and the extent to which people are responsible for their own fate. At the same time, social ethnographies and experiments by psychologists demonstrate...

This paper empirically explores the procedures employed by standard-setting organizations. Consistent with Lerner-Tirole (2004), we find (a) a negative relationship between the extent to which an SSO is oriented to technology sponsors and the concession level required of sponsors and (b) a...