The principle that theories should be tested by the accuracy of their predictions but not by the realism of their assumptions needs to be qualified. As a practical matter we often need to evaluate the applicability of theories to cases for which they have not been tested by their predictions....

We propose an economic model of business groups that allows for the cooperative behavior of groups of firms, where the number and size of each group is determined endogenously. In this framework, more than one configuration of groups that can arise in equilibrium: several different types of...

We extend the Carlstrom and Fuerst (1997) agency cost model of business cycles by including time varying uncertainty in the technology shocks that affect capital production. We first demonstrate that standard linearization methods can be used to solve the model yet second moments enter the...

A large literature has been concerned with the impacts of recent welfare reforms on income, earnings, transfers, and labor-force attachment. While one strand of this literature relies on observational studies conducted with large survey-sample data sets, a second makes use of data generated by...

It is commonly held that power has been transferred from political parties to candidates in the last fifty years, and that television is the cause. This paper constructs a game-theoretical model of political competition in which a technological innovation, like television, can have this effect....

I develop a new approach for sample selection problems that allows parametric forms of any type to be chosen for both for the selection and the observed variables. The Generalized Parametric Selection (GPS) model can incorporate both duration and count data models, unlike previous parametric...

We argue that large games are of analytical interest partly because they can be understood in terms of a unifying condition of incentive-compatibility, strategyproofness. In contrast to finite games, strategy-proofness applies not only to dominantstrategy equilibria, but also to a large class of...

Close to half the California school districts let teachers choose whether to receive their salaries ten monthly payments or in twelve. Fisherine intertemporal maximization implies that they should choose ten payments and earn interest on their savings for their summer. But about half choose...

This working paper contains the slides of two invited lectures on the Epistemic Foundations of Game Theory, delivered at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) on February 8, 2007.

While outsourcing of production from the U.S. to Mexico has been hailed in Mexico as a valuable engine of growth, recently there have been misgivings regarding the fickleness and volatility of this engine. This paper is the first in the literature to focus on the second moment properties of...