Disclosure of lobbying activity has become much more timely and stringent in the US, and many demand similar regulation also for lobbying in the European Union. Disclosure informs voters about a lobbyist’s activity, but it also informs rival lobbying groups, with strategic consequences. Under...

We study a Condorcet jury model where voters are driven both by passion (expressive motives) and by reason (instrumental motives). We show that arbitrarily small amounts of passion significantly affect equilibrium behavior and the optimal size of voting bodies. Increasing the size of voting...

We offer a model of “negative vote buying” – paying voters to abstain. While negative vote buying is feasible under the open ballot, it is never optimal. In contrast, a combination of positive and negative vote buying is optimal under the secret ballot: Lukewarm supporters are paid to show...

We examine the equilibrium interaction between a market for price information (controlled by a gatekeeper) and the homogenous product market it serves. The gatekeeper charges fees to firms that advertise prices on its Internet site and to consumers who access the list of advertised prices....

We study a model in which perfectly informed experts offer advice to a decision maker whose actions affect the welfare of all. Experts are biased and thus may wish to pull the decision maker in different directions and to different degrees. When the decision maker consults only a single expert,...

Educational tracking seeks to group students by unobserved ability using measures of observable acquired skills. In a model where individuals have differential skills prior to beginning formal education due to differences in early childhood development (e.g. linguistic, cultural, or nutritional...

Friedman (1970) suggests that firms ought not divert profits towards public goods since shareholders can better make these contributions themselves. Despite this, activist shareholders are increasingly successful in persuading firms to be "socially responsible." We study firm behavior when...

Much of experimental research in marketing has focused on individual choices. Yet in many contexts, the outcomes of one’s choices depend on the choices of others. Furthermore, the results obtained in individual decision making context may not be applicable to these strategic choices. In this...

Clearinghouse models of online pricing - such as Varian (1980), Rosenthal (1980), Narasimhan (1988), and Baye-Morgan (2001) - view a price comparison site as an "information clearing-house" where shoppers and loyals obtain price and product information to make online purchases. These models...