Several recent papers have proposed recursive Lagrangian-based methods for solving dynamic contracting problems. These methods give rise to Bellman operators that incorporate either a dual inf-sup or a saddle point operation. We give conditions that ensure the Bellman operator implied by a dual...

As school districts integrate charter schools for centralized admissions in Denver, New Orleans, Newark and Washington D.C., some charter schools have stayed out of the system. This is counterintuitive as centralized clearinghouses are deemed beneficial to schools as well as students. We provide...

Many organizations rely on the skills of innovative individuals to create value, including academic and government institutions, think tanks, and knowledge-based firms. Roughly speaking, workers in these fields can be divided into two categories: specialists, who have a deep knowledge of a...

Collaboration networks provide a method for examining the highly heterogeneous structure of collaborative communities. However, existing models of network formation do not provide a connection between observed network heterogeneity and characteristics of the individuals or communities. The model...

A search and matching model, when calibrated to the mean and volatility of unemployment in the postwar sample, can potentially explain the large unemployment dynamics in the Great Depression. The congestion externality induced by matching frictions causes the unemployment rate to increase...

We develop and calibrate a two-sector, search-matching model of the labor market augmented to incorporate a housing market and a frictional goods market. The labor market is divided into a construction sector and a non-housing sector, and there is perfect mobility of unemployed workers across...

Abstract I estimate a return distribution of an equity index from equity index option prices. I evaluate nonparametrically the option price function and a state price density at each 1-year return. Based on a model for dynamics of consumption growth and dividend growth, a real-world probability...

Asset pricing models have largely overlooked the role of labor income dynamics despite it representing two thirds of disposal income. In this paper, we solve a general equilibrium model which can both rationalize important feature of labor markets as well as financial markets. To this end, we...

We study the quantitative properties of constrained e¢ cient allocations in an environ- ment where risk sharing is limited by the presence of private information. We consider a life cycle version of a standard Mirrlees economy where shocks to labor productiv- ity have a component that is public...