We address the problem of finding the optimal lockdown and reopening policy during a pandemic like COVID-19 for a social planner who prioritizes health over the economy. Agents are connected through a fuzzy network of contacts, and the planner's objective is to determine the policy that contains...

We develop a model of optimal lockdown policy for a social planner who balances population health with short-term wealth accumulation. The unique solution depends on tolerable infection incidence and social network structure. We then use unique data on nursing home networks in the United States...

This paper considers the problem faced by a political authority that has to design a legislative mechanism that guarantees the selection of policies that are stable, efficient, and inclusive in the sense of strategically protecting minority interests. Experimental studies suggest that some of...

The rules that are employed to pass policies in legislative bodies vary widely. It is generally argued that policies that differ in complexity or importance level should be decided under different kinds of voting rules. While this question has been examined for static legislative mechanisms, an...

We consider a setting where firms in the first stage invest in cost-reducing R&D. In the market stage, one fi rm sets a quantity, and another sets a price. We prove that the quantity-setting fi rm invests more in R&D, has a lower price, and produces higher quantity than the price-setting fi rm....