American Economic Journal：Microeconomics2023年第2期

American Economic Journal：Microeconomics2023年第2期

VOL. 15, NO. 2, MAY 2023

——更多动态，请持续关注gzh：理想主义的百年孤独

Dynamic Privacy Choices

动态隐私选择

ShotaIchihashi

I study a dynamic model of consumer privacy and platform data collection. In each period consumers choose their level of platform activity. Greater activity generates more information about the consumer, thereby increasing platform profits. When the platform can commit to the future privacy policy, it collects information by committing to gradually decreasing the level of privacy protection. In the long run consumers lose privacy and receive low payoffs but choose high activity levels. In contrast, the platform with weaker commitment power may attain the commitment outcome or fail to collect any data depending on consumer expectations regarding future privacy protection.

研究了一个消费者隐私的动态模型和平台数据收集。在每个阶段，消费者选择自己的平台活动水平。更多的活动产生更多关于消费者的信息，从而增加平台利润。当平台可以承诺未来的隐私政策时，它通过承诺逐步降低隐私保护水平来收集信息。从长远来看，消费者失去了隐私，获得了较低的回报，但选择了高活动水平。相比之下，承诺权力较弱的平台可能会根据消费者对未来隐私保护的预期，实现承诺结果或无法收集任何数据。

Blind Disclosure

盲目的披露

AaronKolb, Marilyn Pease, Daniel W. Sacks and Joshua Quick

We develop and test a theory of blind disclosure. A sender chooses whether to disclose information based on a preliminary, private signal. In the unique equilibrium, contrary to the literature's canonical unraveling result, senders disclose only if their preliminary signal exceeds a cutoff. This cutoff rule leads to partial unraveling in environments with either risk aversion or moral hazard, and disclosure decreases with uncertainty. Using unique administrative data on disclosed and undisclosed grades in a large university, we find that the model is consistent with student choices during spring 2020 to conceal letter grades by switching to optional pass-fail grades.

我们发展并测试了一种盲目披露的理论。发送端基于一个初步的私有信号选择是否公开信息。在唯一均衡中，与文献的典型解离结果相反，发送者只有在他们的初步信号超过截止点时才会披露。这一界限规则导致在风险规避或道德风险的环境中部分解开，披露随着不确定性的增加而减少。利用一所大型大学的公开和未公开成绩的独特管理数据，我们发现该模型与2020年春季学生的选择一致，即通过转换为可选的及格-不及格成绩来隐藏字母成绩。

Optimal Nonlinear Pricing with Data-Sensitive Consumers

具有数据敏感消费者的最优非线性定价

DanielKrähmer and Roland Strausz

We study monopolistic screening when some consumers are data sensitive and incur a privacy cost if their purchase reveals information to the monopolist. The monopolist discriminates between data-sensitive and classical consumers using privacy mechanisms that consist of a direct mechanism and a privacy option. A privacy mechanism is optimal for large privacy costs and leaves classical consumers better off than data-sensitive consumers with the same valuation. When privacy preferences become public information, data-sensitive consumers and the monopolist gain, whereas classical consumers lose. Our results are relevant for policies targeting consumers' data awareness, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation.

Competition in Pricing Algorithms

定价算法的竞争

Zach Y.Brown and Alexander MacKay

We document new facts about pricing technology using high-frequency data, and we examine the implications for competition. Some online retailers employ technology that allows for more frequent price changes and automated responses to price changes by rivals. Motivated by these facts, we consider a model in which firms can differ in pricing frequency and choose pricing algorithms that are a function of rivals' prices. In competitive (Markov perfect) equilibrium, the introduction of simple pricing algorithms can increase price levels, generate price dispersion, and exacerbate the price effects of mergers.

我们利用高频数据记录了有关技术定价的新事实，并研究了其对竞争的影响。一些在线零售商采用技术，允许更频繁地调整价格，并自动对竞争对手的价格变化做出反应。在这些事实的推动下，我们考虑了一个模型，在该模型中，企业可以不同的定价频率，并选择定价算法，这是竞争对手价格的函数。在竞争(马尔可夫完美)均衡下，引入简单定价算法可以提高价格水平，产生价格离散，加剧合并的价格效应。

Targeted Product Design

针对性的产品设计

HeskiBar-Isaac, Guillermo Caruana and Vicente Cuñat

We propose an intuitive representation of product design in which firms locate inside a circle and consumers in its outer circumference. Designs trade off horizontal and vertical transport costs. Our setting encompasses all linear demand rotations. Firms with lower quality or higher marginal costs choose niche designs that cater to specific consumers at the expense of alienating the rest. Firms choose intermediate designs or more polarized ones, instead, depending on the convexity of the vertical transport cost. We examine such design choices in monopoly, duopoly, and monopolistic competition settings.

我们提出了一种直观的产品设计表示法，在这种表示法中，企业位于圆周内，而消费者位于圆周外。设计权衡了横向和纵向运输成本。我们的设置包含了所有的线性需求旋转。质量较低或边际成本较高的公司选择迎合特定消费者的利基设计，以疏远其他消费者为代价。相反，企业会根据垂直运输成本的凸度选择中间设计或更极化的设计。我们研究了垄断、双垄断和垄断竞争环境下的设计选择。

The Good, the Bad, and the Complex: Product Design with Imperfect Information

好的、坏的和复杂的:不完全信息的产品设计

VladimirAsriyan, Dana Foarta and Victoria Vanasco

We study the joint determination of product quality and complexity. In our model complexity affects how difficult it is for an agent to acquire information about product quality. An agent can accept or reject a product proposed by a designer, who can affect the quality and the complexity of the product. We find that complexity is not a necessary feature of low-quality products. An increase in designer–agent alignment leads to more complex but better-quality products. However, higher product demand or lower competition among designers leads to more complex and lower-quality products. We relate our findings to the existing empirical evidence.

我们研究了产品质量和复杂性的联合确定。在我们的模型中，复杂性影响了代理获取产品质量信息的难度。代理人可以接受或拒绝设计师提出的产品，设计师可以影响产品的质量和复杂性。我们发现，复杂性并不是低质量产品的必要特征。设计器-代理一致性的增加导致了更复杂但质量更好的产品。然而，更高的产品需求或更低的竞争，设计师导致更复杂和更低质量的产品。我们将我们的发现与现有的经验证据联系起来。

Ad Clutter, Time Use, and Media Diversity

广告混乱，时间使用和媒体多样性

Simon P.Anderson and Martin Peitz

We introduce advertising congestion along with a time use model of consumer choice among media. Both consumers and advertisers multihome. Higher equilibrium advertising levels ensue on less popular media platforms because platforms treat consumer attention as a common property resource: smaller platforms internalize less of the congestion from advertising and so advertise more. Platform entry raises the ad nuisance price to consumers and diminishes the quality of the consumption experience on all platforms. For consumer welfare this price effect of entry dominates the positive effect of more variety in some settings; thus, consumers will then be worse off after entry.

我们引入了广告拥塞以及消费者选择媒体的时间使用模型。消费者和广告商都有多个家。在不太受欢迎的媒体平台上，更高的均衡广告水平随之而来，因为平台将消费者的注意力视为一种共同的财产资源：较小的平台内化较少的广告拥塞，因此投放更多广告。进入平台提高了消费者的广告滋扰价格，并降低了所有平台的消费体验质量。对于消费者福利而言，这种进入的价格效应在某些情况下优于更多品种的正向效应；因此，消费者在进入后会变得更糟。

Reference Dependence and Attribution Bias: Evidence from Real-Effort Experiments

参考依赖和归因偏差:来自真实实验的证据

BenjaminBushong and Tristan Gagnon-Bartsch

We document a form of attribution bias wherein people wrongly ascribe sensations of positive or negative surprise to the underlying disutility of a real-effort task. Participants in our experiments learned from experience about two unfamiliar tasks, one more onerous than the other. We manipulated expectations about which task they would face: some participants were assigned their task by chance, while others knew their assignment in advance. Hours later, we elicited willingness to work again on that same task. Participants assigned the less (more) onerous task by chance were more (less) willing to work than those who knew their assignment in advance.

我们记录了一种归因偏差，即人们错误地将积极或消极的惊喜感觉归因于实际努力任务的潜在负效用。在我们的实验中，参与者从两个不熟悉的任务中学习，一个比另一个更繁重。我们对他们将面临的任务的预期进行了操纵:一些参与者是随机分配任务的，而另一些人则事先知道他们的任务。几个小时后，我们又得到了再次从事同样任务的意愿。被随机分配任务的参与者比那些事先知道任务的参与者更愿意(更不愿意)工作。

The Doors of Perception: Theory and Evidence of Frame-Dependent Rationalizability

知觉之门:框架依赖性理性化之理论与证据

GaryCharness and Alessandro Sontuoso

We investigate how strategic behavior is affected by the set of notions (frames) used when thinking about the game. In our games the action set consists of visual objects: each player must privately choose one, trying to match the counterpart's choice. We propose a model where different player-types are aware of different attributes of the action set (hence, different frames). One of the novelties is an epistemic structure that allows players to think about new frames, after initial unawareness of some attributes. To test the model, our experimental design brings about multiple frames by varying subjects' awareness of several attributes.

我们调查策略行为是如何受到游戏中使用的概念(框架)的影响。在我们的游戏中，动作集由视觉对象组成:每个玩家必须私下选择一个，试图匹配对方的选择。我们提出了一个模型，在这个模型中，不同的玩家类型会意识到动作集的不同属性(因此，不同的帧)。其中一个新奇之处在于认知结构，它允许玩家在最初不知道某些属性后思考新的框架。为了验证该模型，我们的实验设计通过改变被试对几种属性的感知来产生多个帧。

Reference Pricing as a Deterrent to Entry: Evidence from the European Pharmaceutical Market

参考定价作为进入的威慑:来自欧洲医药市场的证据

LucaMaini and Fabio Pammolli

External reference pricing (ERP), the practice of benchmarking domestic drug prices to foreign prices, generates an incentive for firms to withhold products from low-income countries. Using a novel moment inequality approach, we estimate a structural model to measure how ERP policies affect access to innovative drugs across Europe. We find that ERP increases entry delays in eight low-income European countries by up to one year per drug. The European Union could remove these delays without replacing ERP by compensating firms through lump-sum transfers at the cost of around €18 million per drug.

外部参考定价(ERP)是一种将国内药品价格与国外价格进行比较的做法，它会激励企业不向低收入国家出口产品。利用一种新颖的时刻不平等方法，我们估计了一个结构模型来衡量ERP政策如何影响整个欧洲的创新药物获取。我们发现，在8个低收入欧洲国家，ERP使每种药物最多增加了一年的入境延迟。欧盟可以在不取代ERP的情况下消除这些延迟，通过一次性转移补偿公司，每一种药物的成本约为1800万欧元。

Complexity and Procedural Choice

复杂性和程序选择

JamesBanovetz and Ryan Oprea

We test the core ideas of the "automata" approach to bounded rationality, using simple experimental bandit tasks. Optimality requires subjects to use a moderately complex decision procedure, but most subjects in our baseline condition instead use simpler (often sub-optimal) procedures that economize on "states" in the algorithmic structure of the rule. When we artificially remove the mental costs of tracking states by having the computer track and organize past events, subjects abandon these simpler rules and use maximally complex optimal rules instead. The results thus suggest that the main type of complexity described in the automata literature fundamentally influences behavior.

我们使用简单的实验强盗任务来测试有限理性的“自动机”方法的核心思想。最优性要求受试者使用适度复杂的决策过程，但在我们的基线条件下，大多数受试者反而使用更简单(通常是次最优)的过程，在规则的算法结构中节省“状态”。当我们通过让计算机跟踪和组织过去的事件来人为地消除跟踪状态的心理成本时，受试者就会放弃这些更简单的规则，转而使用最大限度地复杂的最优规则。结果表明，自动机文献中描述的主要复杂性类型从根本上影响行为。

Biased Beliefs in Search Markets

对搜索市场的偏见

TobiasGamp and Daniel Krähmer

We study the implications of biased consumer beliefs for search market outcomes in the seminal framework due to Diamond (1971). Biased consumers base their search strategy on a belief function that specifies for any (true) distribution of utility offers in the market a possibly incorrect distribution of utility offers. If biased consumers overestimate the best offer in the market, a novel type of equilibrium may emerge in which firms make exceptionally favorable offers in order to meet biased consumers' unreasonably high expectations, which then become partially self-fulfilling. Consequently, the presence of biased consumers may improve the welfare of all consumers.

在Diamond(1971)的研究框架中，我们研究了有偏见的消费者信念对搜索市场结果的影响。有偏见的消费者将他们的搜索策略建立在一个信念函数上，该函数指定了市场上任何(真实)的效用分配，这可能是不正确的效用分配。如果有偏见的消费者高估了市场上的最佳报价，那么就会出现一种新的均衡，即企业为了满足有偏见的消费者不合理的高期望而提供格外优惠的报价，然后这种期望就会部分自我实现。因此，有偏见的消费者的存在可能会提高所有消费者的福利。

At the Helm, Kirk or Spock? The Pros and Cons of Charismatic Leadership

掌舵，柯克还是斯波克?魅力型领导的利弊

Benjamin E.Hermalin

Charismatic leaders are often desired. At the same time, experience, especially with demagogues, as well as social science studies, raise doubts about such leaders. This paper offers explanations for charismatic leadership's "mixed report card." It offers insights into why and when charismatic leadership can be effective; which, when, and why certain groups will prefer more to less charismatic leaders; and how being more charismatic can make leaders worse in other dimensions, particularly causing them to work less hard on their followers' behalf.

有魅力的领导者往往是人们所渴望的。与此同时，经验，尤其是与煽动者的经验，以及社会科学研究，都让人对这些领导人产生了怀疑。本文为魅力型领导的“混合成绩单”提供了解释。它提供了关于魅力型领导为什么以及何时可以有效的见解;哪些、何时以及为什么某些群体会更喜欢魅力较弱的领导者;以及更有魅力的领导者如何在其他方面变得更糟，特别是导致他们不那么努力地为追随者工作。

Too Good to Be True? Retention Rules for Noisy Agents

好得令人难以置信?嘈杂代理的保留规则

FranciscoEspinosa ⓡ Debraj Ray

An agent who privately knows his type seeks to be retained by a principal. Agents signal their type with some ambient noise, but can alter this noise, perhaps at some cost. Our main finding is that in equilibrium, the principal treats extreme signals in either direction with suspicion, and retains the agent if and only if the signal falls in some intermediate bounded set. In short, she follows the maxim: "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is." We consider extensions and applications, including non-normal signal structures, dynamics with term limits, risky portfolio management, and political risk-taking.

一个私下里知道自己类型的代理人会寻求被委托人雇用。代理通过一些环境噪声来标记它们的类型，但可以改变这些噪声，也许需要付出一些代价。我们的主要发现是，在平衡中，主宰者以怀疑的态度对待任意方向的极端信号，当且仅当信号落在某个中间有界集合时，主宰者保留代理。简而言之，她遵循的格言是:“如果它看起来好得令人难以置信，它可能就是真的。”我们考虑了扩展和应用，包括非常态信号结构、期限限制的动态、风险投资组合管理和政治风险。

Learning by Choosing: Career Concerns with Observable Actions

T. TonyKe, Christopher Li and Mikhail Safronov

This paper explores potential inefficiencies of incomplete contracts in a dynamic career concerns context. In a firm-worker relationship, the worker performs public tasks that have trade-offs between productivity and informativeness. We show that the first-best outcome can be obtained with short-term contracts if the wage can depend on the task choice. This provides an explanation for wage jumps at promotions—the worker is assigned the more productive but less informative task after promotion. If task choice is not contractible, then inefficiency arises: the worker has an endogenous bias toward informativeness, while the firm is biased toward productivity.

本文探讨了动态职业关注情境下不完全契约的潜在低效率。在公司与员工的关系中，员工执行公共任务，在生产力和信息含量之间进行权衡。研究表明，如果工资与任务选择存在一定的依赖关系，短期合同可以获得最优结果。这就解释了晋升时工资上涨的原因——员工在晋升后被分配了更有生产力但信息量更少的任务。如果任务选择是不可收缩的，那么低效率就会产生:工人的内生性倾向于信息含量，而企业的内生性倾向于生产率。

Relative Wealth Concerns, Executive Compensation, and Managerial Risk-Taking

相对财富担忧、高管薪酬和管理风险承担

QiLiu and Bo Sun

This paper theoretically examines how relative wealth concerns affect equilibrium contracting and systemic risk-taking. We find that such externalities can generate pay for luck as an equilibrium strategy. In expectation of pay for luck in other firms, tying managerial pay to luck provides insurance to managers against a compensation shortfall relative to executive peers. We also show that an effort-inducing mechanism exists: managers have additional incentives to exert effort in utilizing investment opportunities, which helps them keep up with their peers during industry movements; however, pay for luck that is efficient within firms can nonetheless exacerbate aggregate fluctuations, especially during periods of heightened market risk.

本文从理论上考察了相对财富担忧对均衡契约和系统风险承担的影响。我们发现，作为一种均衡策略，这种外部性可以为运气带来回报。在其他公司，人们期待运气带来的薪酬，将管理人员的薪酬与运气挂钩，为管理人员提供了保障，以应对相对于高管同行的薪酬短缺。研究还发现，经理人的努力激励机制存在:经理人有额外的激励来努力利用投资机会，这有助于他们在行业变动中跟上同行的步伐;然而，在公司内部有效的运气支付可能会加剧总体波动，特别是在市场风险较高的时期。

Raising the Bar: Certification Thresholds and Market Outcomes

提高门槛:认证门槛和市场结果

XiangHui, Maryam Saeedi, Giancarlo Spagnolo and Steven Tadelis

Certification of sellers by trusted third parties helps alleviate information asymmetries in markets, yet little is known about the impact of a certification's threshold on market outcomes. Exploiting a policy change on eBay, we study how a more selective certification threshold affects the distribution of quality and incumbent behavior. We develop a stylized model that shows how changes in selectivity change the distribution of quality and prices in markets. Using rich data from hundreds of online categories on eBay.com, we find support for the model's hypotheses. Our results help inform the design of certification selectivity in electronic and other markets.

由可信赖的第三方对卖家进行认证有助于缓解市场上的信息不对称，但人们对认证门槛对市场结果的影响知之甚少。利用eBay上的政策变化，我们研究了一个更具选择性的认证门槛如何影响质量和在位行为的分布。我们开发了一个程式化的模型，展示了选择性的变化如何改变市场上的质量和价格分布。通过使用eBay.com上数百个在线类别的丰富数据，我们找到了对该模型假设的支持。我们的结果有助于在电子和其他市场的认证选择性设计。

Stable and Efficient Resource Allocation with Contracts

有契约的稳定高效的资源配置

BobakPakzad-Hurson

Consider indivisible-object allocation with contracts, such as college admissions, where contracts specify majors. Can a designer guarantee a stable and (student) efficient matching? I show that contracts put stability and efficiency at odds; a necessary condition to ensure these properties is student-lexicographic priorities—schools must rank contracts from "second-tier" students consecutively. I present the weakest restriction guaranteeing stability and efficiency, and characterize necessary and sufficient conditions for any mechanism within a general class to deliver a stable and efficient matching in an incentive compatible manner. I apply this result to two well-known mechanisms: deferred acceptance and top trading cycles.

考虑一下有合同的不可分割对象分配，比如大学招生，合同规定了专业。设计师能否保证一个稳定和(学生)高效的搭配?我指出，契约使稳定和效率发生冲突;确保这些属性的一个必要条件是学生-字典优先级-学校必须连续排列来自”二线”学生的合同。本文提出了保证稳定性和效率的最弱约束，并刻画了一般类内的任何机制以激励相容的方式实现稳定高效匹配的充要条件。我将这一结果应用于两个众所周知的机制:延迟接受和顶级交易周期。

Optimal Task Scheduling under Adverse Selection and Hidden Actions

逆向选择和隐藏行为下的最优任务调度

MuraliAgastya and Oleksii Birulin

A Principal owns a project consisting of several tasks. Tasks differ, both in their innate success probabilities and their incremental benefits. Moreover, only specialists can perform these tasks. Subject to moral hazard and adverse selection, in what order should the Principal commission the tasks, and when should she terminate the project? What investments into changing tasks' characteristics yield the highest marginal profit? These are typical issues that arise in sequencing R&D activities and other sequential production processes. We show that, despite informational constraints, a simple index—a task's effective marginal contribution—determines the optimal schedule/mechanism.

一个负责人拥有一个由几个任务组成的项目。任务是不同的，无论是在其固有的成功概率还是它们的增量收益上。此外，只有专家才能执行这些任务。在道德风险和逆向选择的情况下，委托人应该以什么顺序委托任务，她应该在什么时候终止项目?改变任务特征的投资能产生最高的边际利润?这些是在排序研发活动和其他顺序生产过程中出现的典型问题。我们的研究表明，尽管存在信息约束，一个简单的索引-任务的有效边际贡献-决定了最优调度/机制。

Markets with Within-Type Adverse Selection

具有类型内逆向选择的市场

AnhNguyen and Teck Yong Tan

We study bilateral trade with a seller owning multiple units of a good, where each unit is of binary quality. The seller privately knows her "type"—defined by the number of lemons that she own—and which units in her endowments are the lemons ("within-type adverse selection"). We characterize the set of informationally constrained Pareto optimal allocations and show that every such allocation must involve a trade characterized by a threshold λ∗, with types having less (more) than λ∗ units of lemons selling only their lemons (selling their entire endowment). We provide conditions for a distribution shift that give Pareto-improving allocations.

我们研究与一个拥有多个商品单元的卖方的双边贸易，其中每个单元的质量都是二元的。卖家私下里知道她的“类型”——由她拥有的柠檬数量定义——以及她的禀赋中哪些单位是柠檬(“类型内逆向选择”)。我们描述了信息约束的帕累托最优分配集合，并表明每一种分配都必须涉及一个以阈值λ∗为特征的交易，类型的柠檬数量少于(多于)λ∗，只出售柠檬(出售其全部禀赋)。我们为分配转移提供了帕累托改进分配的条件。