We consider the situation in which individuals in a ̄nite population must repeatedly choose an action yielding an uncertain payo®. Between choices, each individual may observe the performance of one other individual. We search for rules of behavior with limited memory that increase expected payo®s for any underlying payo® distribution. It is shown that the rule that outperforms all other rules ...

This paper applies quantal response equilibrium (QRE) models (McKelvey and Palfrey, Games and Economic Behavior 10 (1995), 6-38) to a wide class of symmetric coordination games in which each player's best response is determined by an order statistic of all players' decisions, as in the classic experiments of Van Huyck, Battalio, and Beil (American Economic Review 80 (1990), 234-248; Quarterly J...

In this paper we consider the problem of the control of access to a firm’s productive asset, embedding the relevant decision makers into a general structure of formal authority relations. Within such an authority structure, each decision maker acts as a principal to some decision makers, while she acts as an agent in relation to certain other decision makers. We study under which conditions dec...

Flexible firms compete by means of wages in the Assignment market while rigid firms have no flexibility over terms of appointment in the Marriage market. Workers trade with both kinds of firms in the hybrid market. Examples show that standard results that characterize the core of the Marriage market (respectively, Assignment market) are not robust to the entrance of flexible (respectively, rigi...

Searching for Rehabilitation in Nonparametric Regression Models with Exogenous Treatment Assignment This paper offers some new directions in the analysis of nonparamertric models with exogenous treatment assignment. The nonparametric approach opens the door to the examination of potentially different distributed outcomes. When combined with crossvalidation, it also identifies potentially irrele...

This paper considers a house allocation problem with no initial ownership and where prices are bounded from below and above by exogenously given price restrictions. This type of housing market contains, e.g., the “assignment market” and the “student placement problem” as special cases. A mechanism called the minimal RPE mechanism is defined, and two main results are obtained. First, it is demon...

The Patentatlas by Greif and Schmiedl (2002) represents an important source for patent data in Germany. Its use for industry-specific studies is however problematic because the correct assignment of patent data classified by technological fields to commonly used industry classifications is unclear. This paper presents an application-oriented approach to this issue. In using industryspecific R&D...

We show that professional soccer players exhibit reference-dependent behavior during matches. Controlling for the state of the match and for unobserved heterogeneity, we show on a minute-by-minute basis that a player breaches the rules of the game, measured by the referee’s assignment of cards, with a significantly higher probability if his team is behind the expected match outcome, measured by...

From Micro Data to Causality: Forty Years of Empirical Labor Economics This overview describes the development of methods for empirical research in the field of labor economics during the past four decades. This period is characterized by the use of micro data to answer policy relevant research question. Prominent in the literature is the search for exogenous variation in treatment assignment w...

We consider the problem of dividing a non-homogeneous onedimensional continuum whose endpoints are identified. Examples are the division of a birthday cake, the partition of a circular market, the assignment of sentry duty or medical call. We study the existence of rules satisfying various requirements of fairness (no-envy, egalitarianequivalence; and several requirements having to do with chan...