We study why 401(k) plans are often low quality. We quantify two forces—misaligned employer incentives and imperfect competition—and evaluate if subsidies, pooled employer plans, or direct quality regulation improve outcomes. @bhattacv @IllanesGaston econometricsociety.org/publi…

Why are some choices harder than others? Space complexity measures the working memory required to make a choice. It predicts people’s errors—and shows how processing the same information in a different order can make choice much easier. @DepartamentoFAE econometricsociety.org/publi…

A rule associates a value of a subset of x with a value of y. We axiomatize models that rank or assign probabilities to y by weighting such rules by their past predictive success. econometricsociety.org/publi…

How do the effects of agricultural interventions change when scaled up? We develop a methodology for combining experiments with a quantitative model: scaling input subsidies in Uganda cuts average gains ~20% but halves the policy's regressivity. econometricsociety.org/publi…

Using elections in India, we study the demand and supply of political candidates. Parties often don't select voters' preferred candidates. Recruitment costs, strategic factors, and loyalty benefits help explain anti-incumbency and criminal nominations. econometricsociety.org/publi…

How should long-term employment contracts be regulated? We show that optimal regulation prices the use of non-competes, tying stronger non-competes to higher wages. This limits inefficient worker lock-in and raises pay at better matches. econometricsociety.org/publi…

Academic research fuels applied innovation, but its commercial impact varies by location. Tracking researchers who move between universities, the study finds that place-specific factors account for 15–25% of geographic variation in commercial spillovers. econometricsociety.org/publi…

How do you get word of a new technology around a village? Asking randomly chosen farmers (not necessarily well-connected) to plant a new seed beside a familiar one reaches as many people as targeting central farmers. Demonstrations help word get around! econometricsociety.org/publi…

Burdett–Mortensen meets oligopsony — a general-equilibrium model of the labor market, with a finite number of large employers who post wages and compete for workers along the job ladder, solved in closed form. With an application to a US noncompete ban. econometricsociety.org/publi…

Why do many businesses in poor countries look overstaffed? Experiments in Uganda show employers and workers prefer redistribution via work to cash even for no-value tasks. Workfare-like incentives, reciprocity, and dignity shape firm size and productivity. econometricsociety.org/publi…

Econometrica Volume 94, Issue 5 (September 2026) is now online econometricsociety.org/publi…

We develop and calibrate a dynamic equilibrium model of the interbank market to estimate aggregate reserve demand and provide central banks with structural diagnostics for policy implementation, target-rate control, and banks’ heterogeneous funding costs. econometricsociety.org/publi…

Why are the wealthiest so wealthy? 27-year panel: top 0.1% wealth gap reflects higher saving (36%), inheritances (31%), returns (28%). Calibrated to cross-sections alone, models miss "New Money" or "Old Money"; our dynamic facts pin down the mechanism. econometricsociety.org/publi…

When Jeff Bezos's Amazon stock doubles, should his tax bill? No, say Mark Aguiar, @ben_moll and @Florian_Scheuer: optimal taxes target realized net trades plus cash flows—not wealth or unrealized gains—while avoiding lock-in, whatever moves asset prices. econometricsociety.org/publi…

Reanalyzing Suri (2011) We find instability in the parameter that governs who benefits most from technology adoption, consistent with weak identification. We propose a group random coefficient approach to diagnose it & construct robust confidence intervals econometricsociety.org/publi…

Can ML generate theoretical insight, not just predictions? Our procedures turn predictive models into anomaly generators, producing minimal cases existing theory can't explain. We apply it to revisit choice under risk. @m_sendhil @asheshrambachan econometricsociety.org/publi…

We propose an algorithm for building efficient recentered IVs. While simulated IVs for Medicaid eligibility discard individual variation as non-random, our recentered IVs preserve it and deliver much more precise estimates. econometricsociety.org/publi…

Repeated games meet coalition stability. @SNageebAli and @CeLiuEcon characterize the power and limits of self-enforcing promises in deterring coalitions. They apply the framework to study the implications of wage transparency in labor markets. econometricsociety.org/publi…