This paper develops a dynamic model of legislative policy making with evolving, privately observed policy preferences. Our goal is to find conditions under which decision rules, which assign feasible policies based on the legislators' preferences, are sustainable in the long run. We show that...

We consider a general economy, where agents have private information about their types. Types can be multi-dimensional and potentially interdependent. We show that, if the interim distribution of types is common knowledge (the exact number of agents for each type is known), then a mechanism...

We consider a general economy, where agents have private information about their types. Types can be multi-dimensional and potentially interdependent. We show that, if the interim distribution of types is common knowledge (the exact number of agents for each type is known), then a mechanism...

Asymmetric information plays an important role in markets and politics. When parties are asymmetrically informed and have misaligned preferences, they may be hurt by adverse selection. By contrast, if parties know that their preferences are aligned, they may benefit from advantageous selection....

This paper discusses the use of informal channels in hiring processes in terms of a standard principal-agent model. We have developed an adverse selection model of the labor market where effort is not contractible and employers have the opportunity to use their group of friends to hire workers....

We characterize the sharing rule that achieves efficiency in a contribution mechanism when agents are heterogeneous. This rule is not the one that was found by Sen when agents are identical. We also show that for a large class of sharing rules if Nash equilibrium yields efficient allocations,...

The paper studies, in a repeated interaction setting, how the presence of cooperative agents in a heterogeneous community organized in groups affects efficiency and group stability. The paper expands on existing literature by assuming that each type can profitably mimic other types. It is shown...

We develop a dynamic model in which a group collectively bargains with an external party. At each date the group makes an offer to the external party (the 'agent') in exchange for a concession. Group members hold heterogeneous preferences over agreements and are uncertain about the agent's...

Reputation concerns of politicians sometimes force them to implement biased policies. We study the effect of reputation (i.e., reelection) concerns on taxation in the age of globalization. To this end, we construct a two-country asymmetric tax competition model in which the residents in one of...

This paper analyzes the role of yardstick competition for improving political decisions. We examine how performance comparisons across jurisdictions affect the agency problem resulting from uncertainty about politicians (adverse selection) and their policies (moral hazard). We study two forms of...