High-frequency trading, as distinct from other forms of algorithmic trading, does not enhance social welfare and can lead to instability. Mandating short, regular trading delays would prevent high-frequency trading while retaining the benefits of algorithmic trading

Frequent flier plans (FFPs) may be the most famous of customer loyalty programs and plans created on the FFP model are now offered by sellers in a number of other industries. We present a theory of FFPs that models them as efforts to take advantage of the agency relationship between employers -...

If a product has two dimensions of quality, one observable and one not, a firm can use observable quality as a signal of unobservable quality. The correlation between consumers' valuation of high quality in each dimension is a key determinant of the feasibility of such signaling. A firm may use...

When is it better for the government to provide information, and when is this role better left to the market? I present a simple framework for evaluating this question, where the key factors are the cost of errors based on imperfect information and whether information is eventually revealed to...