Although there are numerous histories of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), there has been little focus on sub-organizations of the FTC. While this history of one sub-organization, the Bureau of Economics, is a description of the role of economists in antitrust and consumer protection, it also...

В статье рассмотрены основные проблемы асимметрии информации в отношениях принципала и агента с целью определения оптимального и эффективного соотношения...

Replaced with revised version of paper 02/16/11.

This paper provides a rational choice-based analysis of the causes and consequences of surprise events. The paper argues that ignorance may be rational, but nonetheless produce systematic mistakes, inconsistent behavior, and both pleasant and unpleasant surprises. If ignorance and unpleasant...

This paper examines the practical implications of using high-frequency data in a fast and frugal manner. It recognises the continued widespread application of model free approaches within many trading and risk management functions. Our analysis of the relative characteristics of four model-free...

There are historical and institutional reasons behind our economic problems like poverty and environmental damage but it is not acceptable if they persist in years to come. The strategic use of information by individual economic agents establishes a biasing effect on our economy. In case of...

Using data on search and choice behavior from a local automobile market, we estimate monetary returns to search in terms of lower prices resulting from additional time invested in price search. For our analytical framework, we adapt a model developed in the job search literature to the problem...

Consumer advice should reduce asymmetric information between consumer and supplier as well as provide confidence in markets. However, consumer advice itself is characterised by asymmetric information between adviser and consumer. The article figures out this aspect and shows how consumers cope...

George J. Stigler, in his Nobel price lecture of 1982, suggested that the economics of information could be applied to the marketplace of new economic ideas. Economists enter this marketplace ? economic knowledge ? principally on the demand side, where they attempt to distinguish new and...

The rapid collapse of socialism has raised new economic policy questions and revived old theoretical issues. In this book, Joseph Stiglitz explains how the neoclassical, or Walrasian model (the formal articulation of Adam Smith's invisible hand), which has dominated economic thought over the...