Social networks and social interactions affect individual and social norms. We develop a direct test of this using Dutch survey data on how respondents evaluate work disability of hypothetical people with some work related health problem (vignettes). We analyze how the thresholds respondents use...

We offer a new social approach to investment decision making and asset prices. Investors discuss their strategies and convert others to their strategies with a probability that increases in investment returns. The conversion rate is shown to be convex in realized returns. Unconditionally, active...

We model network formation in a firm. Agents learn about the quality of their working relationships with each other. Their good relationships become their networks. Accumulating relationships becomes increasingly costly, however. Over time agents become less open to forming relationships with...

To understand the "pure" incentives of altruism, economic laboratory research on humans almost always forbids communication between subjects. In reality, however, altruism usually requires interaction between givers and receivers, which clearly must influence choices. Charities, for example,...

The dynamic behavior of security prices is studied in a setting where two agents trade strategically and learn over time from market prices. The model introduces an information structure which is intended to capture the notion that information is difficult to interpret. Strategic interaction and...

Empirical studies on information communication technologies (ICT) typically aggregate the "information" and "communication" components together. We show theoretically and empirically that these have very different effects on the empowerment of employees, and by extension on wage inequality. If...

We consider a class of convex, competitive, neoclassical economies in which agents are rational; the equilibrium is unique; there is no room for randomization devices; and there are no shocks to preferences, technologies, endowments, or other fundamentals. In short, we rule out every known source...

Cellular technologies have become increasingly important in the developing world; infrastructure for mobile networks has expanded dramatically over the past two decades giving access to remote areas without previous phone service. Despite this expansion, relatively little is known about the...

We present a new automated, objective and intuitive scoring technique to measure the content of central bank communication about future interest rate decisions based on information from the Internet and news sources. We apply the methodology to statements released by the Federal Open Market...

When is it possible for one person to persuade another to change her action? We take a mechanism design approach to this question. Taking preferences and initial beliefs as given, we introduce the notion of a persuasion mechanism: a game between Sender and Receiver defined by an information...