We model research as a signal on an unknown parameter of a technology.

This a one-agent model of learning by doing and technology choice. The more the agent uses a technology, the better he learns its parameters, and the more productive he gets. This expertise is a form of human capital.

This paper makes two points. First, the modeling used in the rational (or Bayesian) learning literature can be generalized to handle the repeated shocks to preferences inherent and implicit in models of quantal response equilibria (QRE). In particular, we note that the Bayesian model and the QRE...

People at the top of an occupational ladder earn more partly because they have spent time on lower rungs, where they have learned something. But what precisely do they learn? There are two contrasting views: First, the "Bandit" model assumes that people are different, that experience reveals...