Behavioral economics presents a "paternalistic" rationale for government intervention. Current literature focuses on benevolent government. This paper introduces politicians who may indulge/exploit these behavioral biases. We present an analysis of the novel features that arise when the...

We then consider the group of peers (or friends) as an object of choice. We characterize the peer group's optimal composition for each individual in the population. We show that, for each individual, there is a large equivalence class of optimal groups, potentially with maximal variance of...

We study the effects of network externalities on a unique matching protocol for faculty in a large U.S. professional school to offices in a new building. We collected institutional, web, and survey data on faculty`s attributes and choices. We first identify the different layers of the social...

In contexts ranging from public goods provision to information collection, a player's well-being depends on his or her own action as well as on the actions taken by his or her neighbours. We provide a framework to analyse such strategic interactions when neighbourhood structure, modelled in...

We study the effects of network externalities within a protocol for matching faculty to offices in a new building. Using web and survey data on faculty's attributes and choices, we identify the different layers of the social network: institutional affiliation, coauthorships, and friendships. We...

The focus of this paper is the endogenous formation of peer groups. In our model agents choose peers before making contributions to public projects, and they differ in how much they value one project relative to another. Thus, the group's preference composition affects the type of contributions...

We use laboratory experiments to test for one of the foundations of the rational voter paradigm - that voters respond to probabilities of being pivotal. We exploit a setup that entails stark theoretical effects of information concerning the preference distribution (as revealed through polls) on...

We study the performance of two-sided matching clearinghouses in the laboratory. Our experimental design mimics the Gale-Shapley (1962) mechanism, utilized to match hospitals and interns, schools and pupils, etc., with an array of preference profiles. Several insights come out of our analysis....