We consider a robust version of the classic problem of optimal monopoly pricing with incomplete information. In the robust version, the seller faces model uncertainty and only knows that the true demand distribution is in the neighborhood of a given model distribution. We characterize the pricing policies under two distinct decision criteria with multiple priors: (i) maximin utility and (ii) mi...

We construct a strategic trade model of an international duopoly, whereby production by exporting firms generates a local pollutant. Governments use environmental policies, i.e., an emissions standard or a tax, to control pollution and for rent shifting purposes. Contrary to their firm, however, governments are unable to perfectly foresee the actual level of demand, the cost of abatement and th...

We develop an urban equilibrium job search model with employed and unemployed individuals where residential mobility of the unemployed is restricted. We assume a standard mono-centric model (firms are located in one location), but allow for imperfect labour markets. In contrast to models with perfect labour markets, the model predicts that the employed are only partially compensated for commuti...

We investigate the adverse selection problem where a principal delegates multiple tasks to individuals. The individuals form a group as a single agent and share their private signals in order to maximize their average payoff. We characterize the virtually implementable social choice functions by using the linking mechanism proposed by Jackson and Sonnenschein (2005) that restricts the message s...

Recent results in mechanism design show that as long as agents have correlated private information and are sufficiently risk neutral, it is possible to design mechanisms that leave agents with arbitrarily small information rents. We show that these full-rent-extraction results hinge on the implicit assumption that the agents’ beliefs uniquely determine their preferences. We present an example o...

Modern societies are characterized by competing organizations that rely predominantly on incentive schemes to align the behavior of their members with the organizations’ objectives. This study contributes to explaining why in so many cases incentive schemes have gradually crowded out cooperation as an organization device. Our explanation does not draw on free-riding, the obvious Achilles’ heel ...

Equilibrium search models obtained endogenous wage differentials among identical firms and workers based on the equal profit assumption. We formulate a more fundamentally dynamic game with identical players where workers can strategically quit and firms cannot commit to future wages, and find that equilibrium wage differentials arise due to different worker expectations on the firms’ future beh...

Immigration and Housing Rents in American Cities Is there a local economic impact of immigration? Immigration pushes up rents and housing values in US destination cities. The positive association of rent growth and immigrant inflows is pervasive in time series for all metropolitan areas. I use instrumental variables based on a “shift-share” of national levels of immigration into metropolitan ar...