Two agents sequentially contracts with different principals under moral hazard. If agents care for one another, the second principal gains by insuring them over first wages. Even with independent tasks, the first principal must offer riskier payments to induce effort. JEL Codes: D10, D64, D82.

Suppose bidders may publicly choose not to learn their values prior to a second-price auction with costly bidding. All equilibria with truthful bidding exhibit bidder ignorance when bidders are sufficiently few. Ignorance considerations also affect the optimal reserve price. JEL Codes: D44.

Wal-Mart is the largest company in the world, yet little is known about its economic impact. This essay discusses what is known about Wal-Mart’s competitive advantage and its economic impact on local communities, as well as the national and global economy, and highlights the open questions to be addressed by future research. JEL Codes: L11, L25, L81

JEL classification codes: C51 Model construction and estimation C62 Existence and stability conditions of equilibrium D84 Expectations Speculations This paper proposes the Potluck Problem as a model for the behavior of independent producers and consumers under standardeconomicassumptions, as a problemof resourceallocation inamulti-agent system inwhich there is no explicit communication among th...

We show how to minimize the probability of misclassifying individuals as being poor or not poor when data on some of their relevant attributes are missing, but an estimate of the population distribution of attributes is available. JEL Classification Codes: D63, I32

In this paper, I derive an expression for the asymptotic bias in the OLS estimator of the partial effect of a regressor on the dependent variable when there is reverse causality and all variables in the model are covariance stationary. I show that the sign of the asymptotic bias depends only on the signs of the bi-directional causal effects. JEL Codes: C10, C30.

A new multivariate heavy-tailed distribution is proposed as an extension of the univariate distribution of Politis (2004). The properties of the new distribution are discussed, as well as its effectiveness in modeling ARCH/GARCH residuals. A practical procedure for multiparameter numerical maximum likelihood is also given, and a real data example is worked out. JEL codes: C3; C5.

This paper reviews the results from experimental measures of risk aversion for evidence of systematic differences in the behavior of men and women. In most studies, women are found to be more averse to risk than men. Studies with contextual frames show less consistent results. JEL Codes: C91, D81, J16

We extend the finite automata approach to evaluate complexity of strategies in iterative adjustment processes such as auctions. Intuitively, a strategy’s complexity is equal to the number of different contingencies in which qualitatively different behaviors are prescribed. Complexity may explain bidder choice of strategies in multi-unit iterative auctions. JEL classification codes: D44, C73

I propose a simple simulation procedure for large games with multiple equilibria. The simulation procedure is based on a best-response dynamic. The implied equilibrium selection mechanism is intuitive: more stable equilibria are selected with higher probability. JEL Codes: C62, C72, C73