arXiv preprints from January 1, 2026 through September 5, 2026 — 04:19:02 EST
We propose a family of control variate estimators for variance reduction in design-based survey sampling and causal inference, with and without interference. In these settings, inverse probability weighting (IPW) estimators are widely used, but may have large variance when sampling, treatment, or exposure probabilities are small....
Neurofinance shows that financial valuation depends on evolving neural states, while temporal experience is itself state dependent. Yet intertemporal models typically treat time as exogenous and ask how delay affects valuation. This paper examines the converse question: can valuation-related neural dynamics generate subjective...
This paper proposes a metric approach to measuring the complexity of lotteries. Starting by observing that degenerate lotteries are the simplest choice alternatives, the complexity of a lottery is evaluated by its distance from the closest degenerate lottery. Equivalently, a lottery is complex when it is difficult to approximate it by...
We formulate the voter's strategic information acquisition to control the future self's action as a Bayesian persuasion problem. Our main result shows that acquiring information that is irrelevant to the voter's objective can be a worst-case optimal solution: it can reduce the possibility that the future self is swayed by additional...
When parallel trends fails for some treated cohorts but not others, the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT), an average over all of them, is exactly the target that becomes hard to recover. We propose changing the estimand rather than defending it. The credible-subpopulation local ATT (LATT) is the effect for the...
This paper proposes a metric approach to measuring the complexity of lotteries. Starting by observing that degenerate lotteries are the simplest choice alternatives, the complexity of a lottery is evaluated by its distance from the closest degenerate lottery. Equivalently, a lottery is complex when it is difficult to approximate it by...
This paper studies how information censoring enables a myopic cutoff rule in Bayesian sequential search. Under full information, Bayesian learning generally destroys the monotonicity of continuation values, preventing simple cutoff rules. We show that one-sided censoring restores monotonicity by limiting posterior fluctuations,...
This paper employs a Threshold Bayesian Vector Autoregression (TBVAR) to estimate the regime-dependent macroeconomic effects of capital regulation in Hungary. Using the Factor-based Index of Systemic Stress (FISS) as the threshold variable, the model identifies normal and stress regimes consistent with the occasionally binding...
We formulate the voter's strategic information acquisition to control the future self's action as a Bayesian persuasion problem. Our main result shows that acquiring information that is irrelevant to the voter's objective can be a \textit{worst-case optimal} solution: it can reduce the possibility that the future self is swayed by...
Academic freedom has come under growing strain worldwide. To study whether and how academics respond to political pressure, we exploit a natural experiment: the publication in early 2025 of a "blacklist" of words flagged by the U.S. government. We find that the release of this list led to a sharp reduction in the use of these flagged...
Ownership matters for the media's watchdog role. We map the ownership networks behind thousands of online news outlets in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The networks reveal who is ultimately responsible for the news: for over half of the outlets, a single entity. The rest sit behind multi-layered structures, making responsibility hard...
We develop an axiomatic model of robust Bayesian persuasion where the sender cannot fully control the information available to the receiver. After selecting an information structure, the sender expects that more informative structures might be implemented. We model this by allowing the sender to assess each information structure under...
We develop a model of interbank networks with random liquidity shocks. Networks of dilutable debt---e.g., long-term, unsecured---facilitate efficient liquidity transfers: Shocked banks pledge interbank claims as collateral for new senior debt, diluting existing debt. Unlike with non-dilutable debt, indebtedness and connectedness are...
We develop a method for estimating and testing a single block of a macroeconomic model with heterogeneous agents, without placing assumptions on the structure of the rest of the economy. In a large class of models, individual agents' decisions depend on the macroeconomy only through their expectations of the evolution of a...
While technological innovations typically increase wage inequality by favoring skilled workers, we show that instant payment systems instead reduce it. We study the labor market effects of instant payment systems in the context of Brazil's Pix rollout. Using matched employer-employee data, we implement a triple-difference design that...
Limited dependent variable models are central to empirical economics, but likelihood-based inference is infeasible when likelihoods involve high-dimensional integration over latent variables. This paper proposes Stochastically Estimated Gradient Ascent (SEGA), a scalable estimation approach for limited dependent variable models. Using...
Pawn loans offer borrowers a substantial degree of repayment flexibility in exchange for a harsh penalty in case of default: forfeit of collateral worth more than the loan amount along with any payments made toward recovery. Using a large RCT conducted in Mexico City, we document key stylized facts about pawn lending and explore the...
In organized crime, membership moves fastest, deterrence capacity moves more slowly, and division norms move slowest. We model this as a three-stage game: division norms fix how every possible coalition divides its proceeds; the authority then attaches deterrence capacity to named members, before knowing which coalition will form;...
I consider an AR($p$) process that is observed every $q$ periods, either as a snapshot (stock variable) or as a sum over the sampling interval (flow variable). Under fairly mild assumptions, I derive the identified set for general lag lengths $p \in \mathbb{N}$ and sampling frequencies $q \in \mathbb{N}$, I bound its cardinality, and...
We consider the classical additive measurement-error model $X=Y+Z$, where the latent random variable $Y$ has unknown distribution $F_Y$ and the error $Z$ has a known distribution. We develop direct estimators for three functionals of $F_Y$: (i) $F_Y(x)$ at continuity points; (ii) interval probabilities $F_Y(y)-F_Y(x)$ when $x<y$ are...
We solve a natural bimatrix game related to graphs. We consider a finite directed graph $G=(V,E),$ where the strategy set of Player I is the set of vertices $V$ and that of Player II is the set of edges $E.$ There are two sets of positive weights ${\{α_e\}}_{e\in E}$ and ${\{β_e\}}_{e\in E}.$ If Player I chooses a vertex $v$ and...
This paper studies imperfect competition in general equilibrium when households and firms choose price-contingent schedules. Market clearing selects the price generated by those schedules, and each agent accounts for how its own behavior changes equilibrium prices. We derive household and firm optimality conditions, establish...
The dispersion of self-reported life satisfaction has been proposed and used as a comprehensive measure of societal inequality. A negative cross-country association between mean life satisfaction and its standard deviation has been read as evidence that this inequality is itself welfare-relevant, but critics have pointed to the...
Factor-MIDAS regressions forecast a low-frequency target by extracting common factors from a large panel of high-frequency predictors via principal component analysis (PCA). While PCA mitigates the curse of dimensionality, it relies on factor pervasiveness, an assumption often violated when factors are weak, as is common in...
We study a platform that prefers to sell the more profitable of two products. It designs an algorithm that determines the product the consumer encounters first, conditional on her best match. The algorithm simultaneously manipulates consumer attention (steers) and communicates information about match quality (informs). When the...