This paper is a revision of my paper, CFDP 1865. The principal innovation is an equivalent reformulation of the decision problem for weak feasibility of the GE inequalities, using polynomial time ellipsoid methods, as a semidefinite optimization problem, using polynomial time interior point...

This paper considers inference on functionals of semi/nonparametric conditional moment restrictions with possibly nonsmooth generalized residuals, which include all of the (nonlinear) nonparametric instrumental variables (IV) as special cases. These models are often ill-posed and hence it is...

We propose a formal model of scientific modeling, geared to applications of decision theory and game theory. The model highlights the freedom that modelers have in conceptualizing social phenomena using general paradigms in these fields. It may shed some light on the distinctions between (i)...

We present a model in which an outside bank and a default penalty support the value of fiat money, and experimental evidence that the theoretical predictions about the behavior of such economies, based on the Fisher-condition, work reasonably well in a laboratory setting. The import of this...

We investigate partial insurance and group risk sharing in extended family networks. Our approach is based on decomposing income shocks into group aggregate and idiosyncratic components, allowing us to measure the extent to which each is insured, having accounted for public insurance programs....

We study optimal contracting in a setting where a firm repeatedly interacts with multiple workers, and can compensate them based on publicly available performance signals as well as privately reported peer evaluations. If the evaluation and the effort provision are done by different workers (as...

This paper makes several contributions to the literature on the important yet difficult problem of estimating functions nonparametrically using instrumental variables. First, we derive the minimax optimal sup-norm convergence rates for nonparametric instrumental variables (NPIV) estimation of...

A unifying framework for inference is developed in predictive regressions where the predictor has unknown integration properties and may be stationary or nonstationary. Two easily implemented nonparametric F-tests are proposed. The test statistics are related to those of Kasparis and Phillips...

Firms make investments in technology to increase productivity. But in emerging markets, where a culture of informality is widespread, information technology (IT) investments leading to greater transparency can impose a cost through higher taxes and need for regulatory compliance. This tendency...

This paper studies the design of a recommender system for organizing social learning on a product. To improve incentives for early experimentation, the optimal design trades off fully transparent social learning by over-recommending a product (or “spamming”) to a fraction of agents in the...