What is the most statistically efficient way to do off-policy optimization with batch data from bandit feedback? For log data generated by contextual bandit algorithms, we consider offline estimators for the expected reward from a counterfactual policy. Our estimators are shown to have the...

Wicksell (1896) and Lindahl (1919) analyzed the public provision of public goods through parliamentary negotiation. Roemer (2010, 2019) applied Kant’s (1785) categorical imperative to the private provision of public goods by voluntary contributions. They coincide in yielding efficient...

The authors address two significant challenges in using online text reviews to obtain fine-grained attribute level sentiment ratings. First, they develop a deep learning convolutional-LSTM hybrid model to account for language structure, in contrast to methods that rely on word frequency. The...

Many important economic questions arising in auctions can be answered only with knowledge of the underlying primitive distributions governing bidder demand and information. An active literature has developed aiming to estimate these primitives by exploiting restrictions from economic theory as...

This paper offers a new identification strategy for disentangling structural state dependence from unobserved heterogeneity in preferences. Our strategy exploits market environments where there is a choice-consumption mismatch. We first demonstrate the effectiveness of our identification...

This paper investigates the impact of spatial zoning restrictions on retail market outcomes. We estimate a structural model of entry, location and format choice across a large number of markets in the presence of zoning restrictions. The paper contributes to the literature in three ways: First,...

This paper lists 19 points that follow from results I have obtained using a structural macroeconomic model (SEM). Such models are more closely tied to the aggregate data than are DSGE models, and I argue that DSGE models and similar models should have properties that are consistent with these...

Systemic risk must include the housing market, though economists have not generally focused on it. We begin construction of an agent-based model of the housing market with individual data from Washington, DC. Twenty years of success with agent-based models of mortgage prepayments give us hope...

The present crisis is the bottom of a recurring problem that I call the leverage cycle, in which leverage gradually rises too high then suddenly falls much too low. The government must manage the leverage cycle in normal times by monitoring and regulating leverage to keep it from getting too...