This paper looks at the incentives to free-ride on the information signaling of others and shows how this can lead to delay in productive activity and to a cascade of activity once information is signaled. In the presence of increasing returns to scale to a profitable project, an initial pioneer...

When parole boards learn whether inmates are rehabilitated by observing their behavior in prison, we show why they would release one inmate, while continuing to incarcerate another with a longer sentence, but who is otherwise observationally identical. This reflects that the longer a parole...

This paper looks at the incentives to free-ride on the information signaling of others and shows how this can lead to delay in productive activity and to a cascade of activity once information is signaled. In the presence of increasing returns to scale to a profitable project, an initial pioneer...

We consider a parole board that learns about inmates' rehabilitation statuses from observing actions in prison. We show why a board would release one inmate, but not otherwise observationally identical inmates with longer sentences: greater parole board discretion makes additional information...