What's the role of unilateral measures in global climate change mitigation in a post-Durban, post 2012 global policy regime? We argue that under conditions of preference heterogeneity, unilateral emissions mitigation at a subnational level may exist even when a nation is unwilling to commit to...

Does improving creditor coordination by strengthening CACs lead to efficiency gains in the functioning of sovereign bond markets? We address this question in a model featuring both debtor moral hazard and creditor coordination under incomplete information. Conditional on default, we characterize...

We define a solution concept, perfectly contracted equilibrium, for an intertempo- ral exchange economy where agents are simultaneously price takers in spot commod- ity markets while engaging in ecient, non-Walrasian contracting over future prices. Without requiring that agents have perfect...

What are the normative implications of behavioral economics? We study a model where the decisions a person makes, consciously or unconsciously, affect her psychological state (reference point, beliefs, expectations, self-image) which, in turn, impacts on her ranking over available decisions in...

The Industrial Revolution is often characterized as the culmination of a process of commercialisation; however, the precise nature of such a link remains unclear. This paper models and analyses one such link: the impact of a higher degree of anonymity of market transactions on relative factor...

Do unilateral measures to cut emissions provide an adequate foundation for global climate change negotiations from a post-Copenhagen perspective? We document the extent and variety for unilateral measures. In a formal model, we examine the conditions under which global learning, by building on...

This paper contrasts the normative implications of a model of decisionmaking with endogenous frames to those of choice theoretic models of Bernheim and Rangel (2007, 2009) and Rubinstein and Salant (2008) in which observed choices are determined by exogenous frames or ancillary conditions. We...

This paper models the role of internal constraints in causing aspirations failure at the individual level. It shows how initial disadvantage increases the likelihood of binding internal constraints and hence aspirations failure, thus suggesting a new behavioral explanation for poverty traps. In...

We study the public policy implications of a model in which agents do not fully internalize all the conscequences of their actions. Such a model unifies seemingly disconected models with behavioral agents. We evaluate the scope of paternalistic and libertarian-parternalistic policies in the...

This paper shows the robust non-existence of competitive equilibria even in a simple three period representative agent economy with dynamically inconsistent preferences. We distinguish between a sophisticated and naive representative agent. Even when underlying preferences are monotone and...