Altruism or `regard for others' can encourage self-restraint among generators of negative externalities, thereby mitigating the externality problem. We explore how introducing impure altruism into standard regulatory settings alters regulatory prescriptions. We show that the optimal calibration...

It is often claimed that e-commerce has created a more competitive environment by encouraging the entry of new online firms and by enabling buyers to search easily for the lowest prices. The limited evidence that exists paints a mixed picture. Many online markets are advertising- and...

ldquo;Whistle-blowingrdquo; is an increasingly common element of regulatory enforcement programs and one that is encouraged by recent legislation in the United States and elsewhere. We examine how responsive regulators should be to whistle-blower tip-offs and how severe should penalties be for...

Programs that certify the environmental (or other social) attributes of firms are common. But the proliferation of labeling schemes makes it difficult for consumers to know what each one means – what level of ‘greenness' does a particular label imply? We provide the first model in which...

We consider a model in which productive bilateral links are formed between heterogeneous agents who differ in their innate productivity. Local information is complete but an outside planner can observe only network properties. We ask if consistent credit rating -- where agents' ratings are...

A striking feature of sovereign lending is that many countries with moderate debt-to-income ratios systematically face higher spreads and more stringent borrowing constraints than others with far higher debt ratios. Earlier research has rationalized the phenomenon in terms of sovereign...

We show that cross-country differences in the underlying volatility and persistence of macroeconomic shocks help explain two historical regularities in sovereign borrowing: the existence of quot;viciousquot; circles of borrowing-and-default (quot;default trapsquot;), as well as the fact that...