We develop a new methodology to estimate herd behavior in financial markets. We build a model of informational herding that can be estimated with financial transaction data. In the model, rational herding arises because of information-event uncertainty. We estimate the model using data on a NYSE...

This paper analyzes how asset prices in a binary market react to information when traders have heterogeneous prior beliefs. We show that the competitive equilibrium price underreacts to information when there is a bound to the amount of money traders are allowed to invest. Underreaction is more...

This paper estimates the response of investment to changes in uncertainty using data on oil drilling in Texas and the expected volatility of the future price of oil. Using a dynamic model of firms' investment problem, I find that: (1) the response of drilling activity to changes in price...

This paper reports findings from an experiment that implements a search-theoretic model of money as a medium of exchange. The question examined is whether subjects learn to adopt the same commodities as media of exchange that the model predicts will be used in equilibrium. We report that...

A player i's actions in a game are determined by her beliefs about other players; these depend on the game's real-life context, not only its formal description. Define a game situation as a game together with such beliefs; call the beliefs— and i's resulting expectation—rational if there is...

A new data set facilitates study of learning spillovers in World War II shipbuilding. Our results contain two principal but contrasting themes. First, learning spillovers were a significant source of productivity growth, and may have contributed more than conventional learning effects. Second,...

Recent developments in computer networks have driven the cost of distributing information virtually to zero, creating extraordinary opportunities for sharing product evaluations. The authors present pricing and subsidy mechanisms that operate through a computerized market and induce the...

Parenting daughters, sociologists have shown, increases feminist sympathies. I test the hypothesis that children, much like neighbors or peers, can influence parental behavior. I demonstrate that conditional on total number of children, each daughter increases a congressperson's propensity to...