The authors introduce a new solution concept, divine equilibrium, which refines the set of sequential equilibria in signaling games by requiring that off-the-equilibrium-path beliefs satisfy an additional restriction. This restriction rules out implausible sequential equilibria in examples....

There are typically multiple equilibrium outcomes in the Crawford-Sobel (CS) model of strategic information transmission. This paper identifies a simple condition on equilibrium payoffs, called NITS (no incentive to separate), that selects among CS equilibria. Under a commonly used regularity...

We add a round of pre-play communication to a finite two-player game played by a population of players. Pre-play communication is cheap talk in the sense that it does not directly enter the payoffs. The paper characterizes the set of strategies that are stable with respect to a stochastic...

A dynamic monopolist produces at constant unit cost. Each period a new cohort of consumers enters the market. Each entering cohort is identical. Consumers within a cohort have different tastes. The paper shows that if players are sufficiently patient, any positive average profit less than the...

We use a controlled experiment to explore whether there are gender differences in selecting into competitive environments across two distinct societies: the Maasai in Tanzania and the Khasi in India. One unique aspect of these societies is that the Maasai represent a textbook example of a...

Recent discoveries in behavioral economics have led scholars to question the underpinnings of neoclassical economics. We use insights gained from one of the most influential lines of behavioral research-gift exchange-in an attempt to maximize worker effort in two quite distinct tasks: data entry...

Can incentives be effective in encouraging the development of good habits? We investigate the post-intervention effects of paying people to attend a gym a number of times during one month. In two studies we find marked attendance increases after the intervention relative to attendance changes...