We propose a model of religious organizations which relies on the ability of such organizations and personal utility shocks. We show how religious organizations arise endogenously and characterize their features. Specifically, we find that members of the religious organization share similar...

In this review, we survey the economics literature on echo chambers. We identify echo chambers as arising from a combination of two phenomena: (a) the choice of individuals to segregate with like-minded ones, i.e., the creation of chambers, and (b) behavioral biases that induce polarization when...

A model of group decision-making is studied, in which one of two alternatives must be chosen. While group members differ in their valuations of the alternatives, everybody prefers some alternative to disagreement. Our model is distinguished by three features: private information regarding...

In this Paper, we provide an explanation of the democratic peace hypothesis, i.e., the observation that democracies rarely fight one another. We show that in the presence of information asymmetries and strategic complements, the strategic interaction between two democracies differs from any...

The phenomenon of choice shifts in group decision-making is fairly ubiquitous in the social psychology literature. Faced with a choice between a ‘safe’ and ‘risky’ decision, group members appear to move to one extreme or the other, relative to the choices each member might have made...

We analyze the structure of a society driven by power relations. Our model has an exogenous power relation over the set of coalitions of agents. Agents determine the social order by forming coalitions. The power relations determine the ranking of agents in society for any social order. We study...

We propose a model of religious organizations which relies on the ability of such organi-zations and personal utility shocks. We show how religious organizations arise endogenously and characterize their features. Specifically, we find that members of the religious organization share similar...

A model of group decision-making is studied, in which one of two alternatives must be chosen. While group members differ in their valuations of the alternatives, everybody prefers agreement to disagreement. Our model is distinguished by three features: private information regarding valuations,...