"Reference dependence, limited attention, and intertemporal substitution in consumer choice" Abstract We develop a discrete-choice demand model accommodating expectations-based reference effects following Koszegi and Rabin . Applying this model to panel data on household ketchup purchases, we find substantial evidence of reference effects. We then extend this model to fully dynamic setting accommodating limited attention…

"Electoral Systems and Inequalities in Government Interventions" abstract This paper revisits the economic effects of constitutions. We propose a model ofgovernmental resource allocation under political competition and contrast majori-tarian and proportional representation systems. We derive predictions regardingthe relationship between local –sub-district– level characteristics and inequality ingovernment intervention. Looking at a local level and introducing heterogeneityallows…

"Shared Knowledge and Competition for Attention in Information Markets"

"Wealth Returns Persistence and Heterogeneity"

"Social Pressure, Transparency, and Voting in Committees"

"A Tale of Two Premiums: The Role of Hedgers andSpeculators in Commodity Futures Markets"

"Voters' Response to Public Policies: Evidence from a Natural Experiment" abstract How do voters assess policy makers in the presence of incomplete information? We address this question by providing quasi-experimental evidence on voters' electoral response to the realized effects of public policies and by also unmasking the underlying mechanism linking public policies and electoral behavior…

“Escalation of Scrutiny: The Gains from Dynamic Enforcement of Environmental Regulations” abstract In the United States, federal and state governments spent nearly $21 billion in 2014 on the enforcement of environmental regulations and laws, including the Clean Air Act and Amendments and the Clean Water Act. The Environmental Protection Agency uses a dynamic approach to…

"The Leading Premium"

"Sequential Information Design"

"Achievement Rank Affects Perfomance and Major Choices in College" abstract We study how students' performance and educational choices are affected by their relative academic ability among direct peers. In a quasi-experimental setting we show that students perform better when they rank highly in randomly assigned peer groups. We reject that effects operate through an adjustments of…

"Communication in a Complicated World" Abstract A layperson seeks advice from an expert about a decision he has to make.  The expert is privately informed about the mapping from feasible decisions to outcomes, which takes the form of a realization of a Brownian motion with drift.  For each decision, the expert has a hard piece…

"Echoes of Rising Tuition in Students’ Borrowing, Educational Attainment, and Homeownership in Post-Recession America" Abstract State average enrollment-weighted public college tuition and fees per school year rose by $3,843 (or 81 percent) between 2001 and 2009. How are recent cohorts absorbing this surge in college costs, and what effect is it having on their post-schooling…

"Robust predictions in dynamic screening" Abstract We characterize properties of optimal dynamic mechanisms using a variational approach thatpermits us to tackle directly the full program. This allows us to make predictions for a considerably broader class of stochastic processes than can be handled by the first order, Myersonian,approach", which focuses on local incentive compatibility constraints…

"Advertising Spending and Media Bias: Evidence from news Coverage of Car Safety Recalls"

"Regulation of Charlatans in High-Skill Professions"

"Blurred boundaries: a flexible approach for segmentation applied to the car market" Abstract Prominent features of differentiated product markets are segmentation and product proliferation that blurs the boundaries between segments. I develop a tractable demand model, the Ordered Nested Logit, which allows for overlap between neighboring segments. I apply the model to the automobile market…