History is replete with overt discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age, citizenship, ethnicity, marital status, academic performance, health status, volume of market transactions, religion, sexual orientation, etc. However, these forms of discrimination are not equally tolerable. For...

I study a two-period model of conflict with two combatants and a third party who is an ally of one of the combatants. The third party is fully informed about the type of her ally but not about the type of her ally’s enemy. There is a signaling game between the third party and her ally’s...

I consider a model in which an asset owner must decide how much to invest in his asset mindful of the fact that an encroacher’s valuation of the asset is increasing in the asset owner’s investment. Due to incomplete property rights, the encroacher and asset owner engage in a contest over the...

The paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of a donors choice of the composition of unrestricted and in-kind/restricted transfers to a recipient and how this composition is adjusted in response to changes in the moral hazard behavior of the recipient. In-kind or restricted transfers...

Some empirical studies have found that third-party intervention could worsen civil conflicts. However, exactly why this might be the case is not clear. This paper builds a model to explain how a third-party's expected intervention in a conflict could worsen the conflict. I study a two-period...

Consider a world with two people, 1 and 2, where person 1 (the proposer) may offer to help person 2 (the responder). The proposer may be altruistic towards the responder either out of a genuine desire to make her happy or out of guilt. The responder derives disutility from apparent acts of...

Richer and more educated citizens demand better governance than poorer citizens. They participate more in the political process, are more difficult to buy off, and tend to have the financial resources to support a revolt. An autocrat who is politically insecure may therefore not invest in...

The paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of a donor’s choice of the composition of unrestricted and in-kind/restricted transfers to a recipient and how this composition is adjusted in response to changes in the moral hazard behavior of the recipient. In-kind or restricted...

Suppose you are invited to a party, movie, dinner, etc not because your company is desired but because the inviter would feel guilty if she did not invite you. Interestingly, this social interaction is, under certain conditions a game with interdependent preferences types combined with either...