Is an economy with adverse selection, moral hazard, or an incomplete set of risk markets "constrained" Pareto efficient? There are two sets of papers addressing this question, one asserting that, under seemingly quite general conditions, the economy is constrained Pareto efficient, the other (to...

I construct an agency model of local public goods producers with special reference to public schools. The model assumes that households make Tiebout choices among jurisdictions, but it has more realistic assumptions about information and the cost of residential mobility. I examine producers'...

Consumers often face an overwhelming amount of information when deciding between products, and one of the primary policymaking tools available to improve their informativeness is the framing of this information. We introduce a general theoretical approach that characterizes when one frame is...

This paper outlines the case for using the Marginal Value of Public Funds (MVPF) in empirical welfare analysis. It compares the MVPF approach with more traditional welfare metrics such as the Cost-Benefit Ratio and the Net Social Benefits criterion. It outlines the advantages of the MVPF...

This paper reformulates the New Keynesian model to incorporate output adjustments through the extensive margin. Shifting from adjustments through the intensive to the extensive employment margin, the model introduces predetermined output, altering key properties of the New Keynesian framework....

In a market with symmetric information about fundamentals, can information-based trade still arise? Consider bond and FX markets, where private information about nominal cash flows is generally absent, but participants are convinced that superior information exists. We analyze a class of...

Empirical evidence shows that macroeconomic fundamentals have little explanatory power for nominal exchange rates. On the other hand, the recent microstructure approach to exchange rates' has shown that most exchange rate volatility at short to medium horizons is related to order flows. This...

We propose a new approach to modeling the cost of information structures in rational inattention problems, the "neighborhood-based" cost functions. These cost functions have two properties that we view as desirable: they summarize the results of a sequential evidence accumulation problem, and...

This paper investigates the role played by informational frictions in college and the workplace. We estimate a dynamic structural model of schooling and work decisions, where individuals have imperfect information about their schooling ability and labor market productivity. We take into account...