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Revealed preference rankings, using data from student admission platforms, present an alternative to conventional academic rankings whose reference criteria are fluctuating and manipulable. We show how admission procedures, whether centralized or decentralized, generate raw information about individual student preferences that can be exploited to construct rankings. Next, we examine the case of the SIGEM ranking of French business schools, an original example of ranking using data from a centralized admission system. This analysis contributes to understanding the strengths and limitations of revealed preference rankings in the higher education sector. While revealed preference rankings address many issues found in other ranking methodologies, some fundamental challenges still persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, the role of a citizen, a public official, and an observer in the reproduction of bribery as a social norm are each analyzed. To make the analysis of this cellular-social form of corruption, three variables are incorporated: the agent's perception of how widespread the corruption is, the agent's available resources with which to act, and the role of moral values. Later, some scenarios of normalization and denormalization of corruption are explored, making different assumptions regarding the analysis and assignment of agents to different roles in the interactions. What was found is that power relations among corrupt and non-corrupt agents are key for understanding the social reproduction of bribery, where inequality might facilitate the social reproduction of corruption. The role of the observer of the interaction of bribe-givers, bribe-takers, and bribe-resisting agents was also found to potentially tip the balance in the direction of normalization or denormalization of bribery. Hence, giving the observer tools to intervene in these interactions becomes essential to combat corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a mechanism that gives students the option of paying higher tuition to attend their preferred schools. This seat‐purchasing mechanism is neither strategyproof nor stable. Our paper combines administrative and survey data to estimate students' preferences and conducts welfare analysis. We find that changing from a deferred acceptance mechanism to the cadet‐optimal stable mechanism reduces students' welfare but that adopting the observed seat‐purchasing mechanism alleviates this welfare loss. Moreover, students from affluent communities prefer to pay higher tuition to stay at preferred schools, while those from less affluent communities are more likely be priced out to lower‐quality schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies bargaining outcomes in economies in which agents may be able to impose outcomes that deviate from the relevant social norms but incur costs when they do so. It characterizes bargaining outcomes that are easiest for a society to sustain as part of a social norm that everybody will want to follow. Depending on technological assumptions, the approach yields the Nash bargaining solution, the Kalai–Smorodinsky solution, the equal monetary split, and other bargaining solutions. Set‐valued solution concepts are derived that are relevant if one is unable or unwilling to make specific technological assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When both a buyer and a seller have private information about their valuations of the same object, they trade the object less efficiently. A better-informed agent than the buyer and the seller can facilitate trade more efficiently by advising them with the agent's information. However, the agent's interest affects the validity of the agent's advice and thus trade outcomes. When the agent's interest is to maximize the trade probability rather than the expected transaction price, the agent is more likely to share the agent's information with both the buyer and the seller. The information provided by the agent raises not only the trade probability but also the expected transaction price. Therefore, the attempt of the agent to raise the expected transaction price may fail, whereas the one to increase the trade probability succeeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new algorithm in the two-sided marriage market wherein both sides of the market propose in each round. The algorithm always yields a stable matching. Moreover, the outcome is a Rawlsian stable matching if the number of men and women is equal. Lastly, the algorithm can be computed in polynomial time and, from a practical standpoint, can be used in markets where fairness considerations are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a model of large many‐to‐one matching markets with occupational choice where each individual can choose which side of the market to belong to. We show that stable matchings exist under mild assumptions; in particular, both complementarities and externalities can be accommodated. Our model generalizes Greinecker and Kah (2021), which focuses on one‐to‐one matching and did not allow for occupational choice. Applications include the roommate problem with nonatomic participants, explaining the size and distribution of firms and wage inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore mechanism design with outcome‐based social preferences. Agents' social preferences and private payoffs are all subject to asymmetric information. We assume quasi‐linear utility and independent types. We show how the asymmetry of information about agents' social preferences can be operationalized to satisfy agents' participation constraints. Our main result is a possibility result for groups of at least three agents: Any such group can resolve any given allocation problem with an ex post budget‐balanced mechanism that is Bayesian incentive‐compatible, interim individually rational, and ex post Pareto‐efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the allocation of indivisible objects under weak priorities, a common practice is to break the ties using a lottery and to randomize over deterministic mechanisms. Such randomizations usually lead to unfairness and inefficiency ex ante. We propose and study the concept of ex ante fairness for random allocations, extending some key results in the one‐sided and two‐sided matching markets. It is shown that the set of ex ante fair random allocations forms a complete and distributive lattice under first‐order stochastic‐dominance relations, and the agent‐optimal ex ante fair mechanism includes both the deferred acceptance algorithm and the probabilistic serial mechanism as special cases. Instead of randomizing over deterministic mechanisms, our mechanism is constructed using the division method, a new general way to construct random mechanisms from deterministic mechanisms. As additional applications, we demonstrate that several previous extensions of the probabilistic serial mechanism have their foundations in existing deterministic mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study changes in educational homogamy in the US and four European countries over the decade covering the Great Recession. The marital preferences identified point to the widening of the social gap between different educational groups since these preferences have increased the inclination of the individuals to match with others of similar educational traits in all five countries. We obtain this finding with an aggregate measure characterizing revealed preferences of individuals in relationship. We apply a novel approach for validating our finding: we compare our aggregate measure with dating data informative about the reservation points not only of those people who will be in a couple, but also those who will remain single. Finally, we challenge a commonly held view: we argue that marital preferences should not be blamed for the documented increase of the social gap since preferences are not exogenous, but are shaped by changes in the employment prospects of the potential partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In legislative bargaining, the proposer is often able to extract a greater proportion of the surplus. However, a higher likelihood of being selected as the proposer can backfire, as it may reduce the probability that the agent is included in a winning coalition. We experimentally test the theoretical prediction of potentially negative returns to recognition probability in two-period legislative bargaining noted in Baron and Ferejohn (1989). We find that higher recognition probability benefits subjects in all treatments, except one in which we automate the second period. It is because proposers often favor the member with the greater recognition probability as a coalition partner, and such tendency varies depending on the proposer's recognition probability, counter to the theoretical prediction. In all treatments, a vast majority of subjects exhibit a strict preference for higher recognition probability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We experimentally test a model of public good bargaining due to Bowen et al. (Am Econ Rev 104:2941–2974, 2014) and compare two institutions governing bargaining over public good allocations. The setup involves two parties negotiating the distribution of a fixed endowment between a public good and each party’s individual account. Parties attach either high or low weight to the public good and the difference in these weights reflects the degree of polarization. Under discretionary bargaining rules, the status quo default allocation to the group account (in the event of disagreement) is zero while under the mandatory bargaining rule it is equal to the level last agreed upon. The mandatory rule thus creates a dynamic relationship between current decisions and future payoffs, and our experiment tests the theoretical prediction that the efficient level of public good is provided under the mandatory rule while the level of public good funding is at a sub-optimal level under the discretionary rule. Consistent with the theory, we find that proposers (particularly those attaching high weight to the public good) propose significantly greater allocations to the public good under mandatory rules than under discretionary rules and this result is strengthened with an increase in polarization. Still, public good allocations under mandatory rules fall short of steady state predictions, primarily due to fairness concerns that prevent proposers from exercising full proposer power.

We revisit the classical object reallocation problem under strict preferences. When attention is constrained to the set of Pareto‐efficient rules, it is known that top trading cycles (TTC) is the only rule that is strategy‐proof and individually rational. We relax this constraint and consider pair efficiency. A rule is pair‐efficient if it never induces an allocation at which a pair of agents gain from trading their assigned objects. Remarkably, even in the larger set of pair‐efficient rules, we find that TTC is still the only rule that is strategy‐proof and individually rational. Our characterization result gives strong support to the use of TTC in object reallocation problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficiency Adjusted Deferred Acceptance Rule (EDA) is a promising candidate mechanism for a public school assignment. A potential drawback of EDA is that it could encourage students to game the system since it is not strategy‐proof. However, to successfully strategize, students typically need information that is unlikely to be available to them in practice. We model school choice under incomplete information and show that EDA is regret‐free truth‐telling, which is a weaker incentive property than strategy‐proofness and was introduced by Fernandez (2020). We also show that there is no efficient matching rule that weakly Pareto dominates a stable matching rule and is regret‐free truth‐telling. Note that the original version of EDA by Kesten (2010) weakly Pareto dominates a stable matching rule, but it is not efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unemployment hysteresis, where joblessness persists even after economic improvement, reveals the lasting impact of initial downturns. We delve into this puzzle in Morocco from 1999Q1 to 2019Q3, using four methods to examine the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) time series for unit root causes. Across all methods, we consistently find a hysteresis effect. We also explore how inflation and NAIRU interact, although results are mixed. This suggests policies focusing on reform, training, and learning could help reduce long-term joblessness. Our findings shed light on unemployment's enduring effects, even during recoveries, hinting at possible shifts in job markets. Our study contributes to global science by examining labor market hysteresis in Morocco, offering insights into policy implications for both Morocco and other developing nations. By examining how economic policies impact unemployment over time, we provide valuable guidance for policymakers grappling with similar challenges. Our research underscores the need to consider local contexts when crafting effective economic policies for developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a model in which two players with opposing interests try to alter a status quo through instability‐generating actions. We show that instability can be used to secure longer‐term durable changes, even if it is costly to generate and does not generate short‐term gains. In equilibrium, instability generated by a player decreases when the status quo favors them more. Equilibrium always exhibits a region of stable states in which the status quo persists. As players' threat power increases, this region shrinks, ultimately collapsing to a single stable state that is supported via a deterrence mechanism. There is long‐run path‐dependency and inequity: although instability eventually leads to a stable state, it typically selects the least favorable one for the initially disadvantaged player. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study multistage centralized assignment systems to allocate scarce resources based on priorities in the context of school choice. We characterize schools' capacity-priority profiles under which an additional stage of assignment may improve student welfare when the deferred acceptance algorithm is used at each stage. If the capacity-priority profile is acyclic, then no student prefers any subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium (SPNE) outcome of the 2-stage system to the truthful dominant-strategy equilibrium outcome of the 1-stage system. If the capacity-priority profile is not acyclic, then an SPNE outcome of the 2-stage system may Pareto dominate the truthful dominant-strategy equilibrium outcome of the 1-stage system. If students are restricted to playing truncation strategies, an additional stage unambiguously improves student welfare: no student prefers the truthful dominant-strategy equilibrium outcome of the 1-stage system to any SPNE outcome of the 2-stage system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a framework for studying repeated matching markets. The model departs from the Gale–Shapley matching model by having a fixed set of long‐lived players (firms) match with a new generation of short‐lived players (workers) in every period. I define history‐dependent and self‐enforcing matching processes in this repeated matching environment and characterize the firms' payoffs. Firms fall into one of two categories: some firms must obtain the same payoff as they would in static stable matchings, and this holds at every patience level; meanwhile, repetition and history dependence can enlarge the set of sustainable payoffs for the other firms, provided that the firms are sufficiently patient. In large matching markets with correlated preferences, the first kind of firms corresponds to "elite" firms that make up at most a vanishingly small fraction of the market. The vast majority of firms fall into the second category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between the degree of human capital and the labor's share for selected 30 economies over the 1980–2019 period. The main rationale behind this nexus is to show that a higher degree of human capital reduces the labor's share if the bargaining power of workers is relatively low than the threat option of capital. This also leads to exacerbation of inter-class conflicts and thus may result in a higher rate of income diversion among the wage and salaried workers. Along with the negative impact of the bargaining framework on labor's share, the study also refers to the argument that technological progress can increase the labor's share if it absorbs the excess supply of workers by tending to an increase in employment opportunities. However, the empirical findings also imply that technological progress alone has a downward trend on labor's share since it may lead to provide an extra surplus for capital and thus raises the capital's share at the expense of labor's share. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine whether firms follow the Securities and Exchange Commission's confidential treatment protocols when redacting potentially material information from their credit agreements. My findings suggest that most firms may not comply with SEC directives: they withhold potentially material information without following the SEC's confidential treatment protocols and without making interested parties aware of their information disadvantage. I also find evidence consistent with lender and borrower incentives driving the decision to withhold potentially material information from the credit agreement. My findings are consistent with lenders influencing redaction decisions not out of concern about rivals but because they do not want their other borrowers to see the terms. Finally, I find that the Refinitiv / LPC Dealscan database rarely includes redacted fee data, thus leading to potential biases when fees are included in cost of debt measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a college admission mechanism, students are often matched with colleges by using a noisy signal of their true abilities (e.g., their exam scores). The matching outcome thus may be imperfect in terms of ex-ante fairness, which suggests matching students with higher ability to better colleges. To achieve ex-ante fairness, we consider constraining student choice over colleges, by designing treatments with different constraint levels under the Boston and Serial Dictatorship mechanisms, with preference submission before or after the exam. Constraining student choice increases the probability of achieving ex-ante fairness under the Boston and Serial Dictatorship mechanisms with preference submission before the exam, compared with unconstrained mechanisms and mechanisms with preference submission after the exam. However, the probability of achieving highly unfair matching is also increased, resulting in a riskier matching outcome. Learning the game or providing students with recommended equilibrium strategies can decrease this risk and further increase ex-ante fairness.

I study how the arrival of new private information affects bargaining outcomes. A seller makes offers to a buyer. The buyer is privately informed about her valuation and the seller privately observes her stochastically changing cost of delivering the good. Prices fall gradually at the early stages of negotiations, and trade is inefficiently delayed. The first‐best is implementable via a mechanism, whereas all equilibrium outcomes of the bargaining game are inefficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]