We show that supply networks are inefficiently, and insufficiently, resilient. Upstream firms can expand their production capacity to hedge against supply and demand shocks. But the social benefits of such investments are not internalized due to market power and market incompleteness. Upstream...

"Gary Becker once wrote a periodic column for Business Week, and, in the December 29, 1997 issue, his column was entitled "Why Every Married Couple Should Sign a Contract." Becker argues, roughly, that marriage, a complex contractual arrangement (subject to dissolution), should be fine-tuned to...

This paper analyses the impact of credit expansions arising from increases in collateral values or lower interest rate policies on long-run productivity and economic growth in a two-sector endogenous growth economy with credit frictions, with the driver of growth lying in one sector...

We survey aspects of the intellectual development of the economics of information from the 1970s to today. We focus here on models where information is communicated indirectly through actions. Basic results, such as the failure of the fundamental theorems of welfare economics, the non-existence...

The paper surveys the recent work on economics of information with endogenous information structures where individuals can directly communicate information with each other. We consider the theoretical work on cheap talk, Bayesian persuasion, and information design, and review the implications of...

Principal-agent models take outside options, determining participation and incentive constraints, as given. We construct a general equilibrium model where workers' reservation wages and the maximum punishment acceptable before workers quit are instead determined endogenously. We simultaneously...

This paper analyzes frameworks for the design of the rules for international trading, assuming that it is possible to have some rule of law. In the Arrow-Debreu benchmark, where there is no economic power and political power is seemingly irrelevant, there is no need for trade agreements - free...

To accept carbon pricing, citizens desire viable alternatives to fossil-fuel based options. As inflation and higher interest rates have exacerbated access barriers for capital-intensive green substitutes, the political success of carbon pricing will be measured by how well policy design enables...