This paper presents a dynamic general equilibrium model of a taxi market. The model is estimated using data from New York City yellow cabs. Two salient features by which most taxi markets deviate from the efficient market ideal is the need of both market sides to physically search for trading...

We study the role of commitment in communication and its interactions with rules, which determine whether or not information is verifiable. Our framework nests models of cheap talk, information disclosure, and Bayesian persuasion. Our model predicts that commitment has opposite effects on...

This paper presents a dynamic political-economic model of total government obligations. Its focus is on the interplay between debt and entitlements. In our model, both are tools by which temporarily powerful groups can extract resources from groups that will be powerful in the future: debt...

We study the policy choices of an incumbent politician when voters imperfectly observe aggregate spending and the incumbent's ability. We show that total spending is decreasing in the transparency of spending, but increasing in the transparency of the incumbent's ability. The model further...

This is an invited chapter for the forthcoming Volume 4 of the Handbook of Industrial Organization. We focus on markets with frictions, such as transaction costs, asymmetric information, search and matching frictions. We discuss how such frictions affect allocations, favor the emergence of...

An undesirable feature of Akerlof style models of adverse selection is that ownership of" used cars is independent of preferences and is therefore ad hoc. We present a dynamic model" that incorporates the market for new goods. Consumers self-select into buying new or used" goods making ownership...

We look at the life insurance industry to study the properties of long term contracts in a world where consumers cannot commit to a contract. The main issue is how contracts are designed to deal with classification risk. We present a model that captures the main features of this industry. The...

We investigate models of cheap talk, information disclosure, and Bayesian persuasion, in a unified experimental framework. Our umbrella design permits the analysis of models that share the same structure regarding preferences and information, but differ in two dimensions: the rules governing...

This paper presents a dynamic general equilibrium model of a taxi market. The model is estimated using data from New York City yellow cabs. Two salient features by which most taxi markets deviate from the efficient market ideal are, first, matching frictions created by the need for both market...