Two laboratory experiments - one a statistical urn problem, the other a monetary policy experiment - were run to test the commonly-believed hypothesis that groups make decisions more slowly than individuals do. Surprisingly, this turns out not to be true there is no significant difference in...

Why would the US threaten punitive tariffs on luxury autos to implement a market share target in auto parts? We show that by making threats to a linked market, a market share may be implemented with fairly weak informa- tional and administrative requirements. Moreover, such policies can be both...

In an earlier paper (Blinder and Morgan, 2005), we created an experimental apparatus in which Princeton University students acted as ersatz central bankers, making monetary policy decisions both as individuals and in groups. In this study, we manipulate the size and leadership structure of...

This classroom experiment introduces students to the concept of double marginalization, i.e., the exercise of market power at successive vertical layers in a supply chain. By taking on roles of firms, students determine how the mark-ups are set at each successive production stage. They learn...

We analyze the information content of stock recommendations by a sell-side equity analyst when investors are uncertain about the analyst's incentives. In our model, an analyst can either be quot;unbiasedquot;, having incentives that are congruent with those of the investor, or quot;biasedquot;,...

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....

Intro -- Contents -- I. Introduction -- II. Related Literature -- III. Model -- IV. Optimal Search and Hiring -- V. Performance Metrics -- VI. Policy Implications -- VII. Conclusions -- Appendix: Proofs of Lemmas, Propositions and Implications -- References.

We study situations where a new entrant with privately known talent competes with an incumbent whose talent is common knowledge. Competition takes the form of a rank-order tournament. Prior to the competition, the newbie can "show off," i.e., send a talent revealing costly signal. We find that...