Working papers results
We study panel data regression models when the shocks of interest are aggregate and possibly small relative to idiosyncratic noise. This speaks to a large empirical literature that targets impulse responses via panel local projections. We show how to interpret the estimated coefficients when units have heterogeneous responses and how to obtain valid standard errors and confidence intervals. A simple recipe leads to robust inference: including lags as controls and then clustering at the time level. This strategy is valid under general error dynamics and uniformly over the degree of signal-to-noise of macro shocks.
Most societies in the world contain strong group identities and the culture supporting these groups is highly persistent. This persistence in turn gives rise to a
practical problem: how do and should societies with strong group identities organize themselves for exchange and public good provision? In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework that allows us to study, normatively and positively, the relationship between social structure, state capacity, and economic activity.
Are the players “commonly meta-certain” of an interactive belief model itself? The paper formalizes what it means by: “a player is (meta-)certain of her own belief-generating map” or “the players are (meta-)certain of the profile of belief-generating maps (i.e., the model).” The paper shows: a player is (meta-)certain of her own belief-generating map if and only if her beliefs are introspective. The players are commonly (meta-)certain of the model if and only if, for any event which some player i believes at some state, it is common belief at the state that player i believes the event. This paper then asks whether the “common meta-certainty” assumption is needed for epistemic characterizations of game-theoretic solution concepts. The paper shows: common belief in rationality leads to actions that survive iterated elimination of strictly dominated actions, as long as each player is logical and (meta-)certain only of her own strategy and belief-generating map