Commitment is typically modeled by assigning to one of the players the ability to take an initial binding action. The weakness of this approach is that the fundamental question of who has the opportunity to commit cannot be addressed, as it is assumed. This paper presents a framework in which commitment power arises endogenously from the fundamentals of the model. We construct a finite dynamic ...

THE NEW “ENDOGENOUS” GROWTH theory that was spawned by the contributions of Romer (1986) and Lucas (1988) has now largely displaced the old neoclassical growth theory of Solow (1956) and Swan (1956) from the frontiers of academic research. But endogenous growth theory vintage 2004 is different in many respects from vintage 1988. These differences are the result of a fruitful interaction that ha...

We present a model in which each agent’s sentiments toward others are determined endogenously on the basis of how they behave relative to a standard of appropriate behavior. As sentiments change, so too does the optimal behavior of each individual, which in turn affects other agents’ sentiments toward them. We focus on fixed points of this reciprocal adjustment process. To demonstrate the poten...