This paper develops a mechanism design approach to study externalities and re-distribution. The mechanism screens individuals’ social weights to strike a balance among broad distributional objectives, incentives to work, and incentives to reduce externalities. The welfare-optimal allocation...

This study investigates dishonest behavior among cocoa middlemen in Côte d'Ivoire, focusing on the role of observability and financial penalties in deterring such behavior. Using on a modified version of the "die-under-cup task", we examine the cheating behaviors of 151 cocoa middlemen over...

Freelancers face cold-start problems in online labor markets: getting hired is very difficult without ratings, while obtaining a rating is impossible unless already having been hired. According to economic theory and empirical evidence, advertising can serve as a signal of product quality for...

We follow workers' performance along an unbalanced panel dataset over multiple years and study how performance varies at the end of fixed-term contracts, in a labour market where some people face a mobility restricting clause (i.e., a noncompete clause). Focusing on the labour market of the...

Collective action is a dynamic process where individuals in a group assess over time the benefits and costs of participating toward the success of a collective goal. Early participation improves the expectation of success and thus stimulates the subsequent participation of other individuals who...

Financiers in early-stage entrepreneurial finance are known for their "spray-and-pray" approach, where they fund multiple start-ups expecting profits on a few to compensate losses on a lot of failed ones. We develop a theoretical framework in which financiers compete to fund entrepreneurs in an...

As climate risk escalates, property insurance is critical to reduce the risk exposure of households and firms and to aid recovery when disasters strike. To perform these functions efficiently, insurers need to access high quality information about disaster risk and set prices that accurately...

Stock markets play a dual role: help allocate capital by conveying information about firms' fundamentals and provide liquidity by quickly turning stocks into cash. We propose a trading model in which these two roles are endogenously related: more intensive use of stocks for liquidity affects...

We use the tools of mechanism design, combined with the theory of risk measures, to analyze how a cash constrained owner of an asset with known stochastic returns raises capital from a population of investors that differ in their risk aversion and budget constraints. The issuer partitions the...

Financiers in early-stage entrepreneurial finance are known for their "spray-and-pray" approach, where they fund multiple start-ups expecting profits on a few to compensate losses on a lot of failed ones. We develop a theoretical framework in which financiers compete to fund entrepreneurs in an...