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2603.02113 2026-03-03 econ.TH

In Search of Lost Correlation: Correlated Equilibrium via Marginal Actions

Christopher P. Chambers, Maxime Cugnon de Sévricourt, Christopher Turansick

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英文摘要

In this paper, we study which data can be induced by a correlated equilibrium given a known finite simultaneous move game. We assume that an analyst has access to the frequency of each agent's actions but does not have access to the distribution over joint action profiles. We characterize which sets of marginal distributions over actions arise from some correlated equilibria via a type of no arbitrage condition. An outside observer is unable to make a profit in expectation by independently contracting with each agent and collecting a portion of the total utility gained via unilateral deviation. This characterization naturally extends to Nash equilibria.

2603.02076 2026-03-03 econ.GN cs.HC q-fin.EC

When an AI Judges Your Work: The Hidden Costs of Algorithmic Assessment

David Almog, Lucas Lippman, Daniel Martin

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We use an online experiment with a real work task to study whether workers change their behavior when they know AI will be used to judge their work instead of humans. We find that individuals produce a higher quantity of output when they are assigned an AI evaluator. However, controlling for quantity, the quality of their output is lower, regardless of whether quality is measured using humans or LLM grades. We also find that workers are more likely to use external tools, including LLMs, when they know AI is used to judge their work instead of humans. However, the increase in external tool use does not appear to explain the differences in quantity or quality across treatments.

2511.05338 2026-03-03 econ.TH

Task assignment as dynamic incentives

Yonghang Ji, Allen Vong

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We study repeated task assignment as an instrument for providing effort incentives. Unlike traditional incentive instruments, assignment of a task both determines who produces and provides incentives, and incentives for one worker spill over to others because assignment is exclusive. We show that optimal incentives require a strict and evolving priority ranking through which workers are assigned the task. This ranking implies that workers' average workloads differ even when they are symmetric in all payoff-relevant respects. We characterize how workforce size, monitoring, and working conditions shape the scope of optimal incentive provision and the resulting inequality among workers.

2509.21812 2026-03-03 econ.TH

On fairness of multi-center allocation problems

Yao Cheng, Di Feng

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We investigate Ekici (2024b)'s multi-center allocation problems, focusing on fairness in this context. We introduce three fairness notions that respect centers' priorities: internal fairness, external fairness, and procedural fairness. The first notion eliminates envy among agents within the same center, the second prohibits envy across different centers, and the third rules out envy from an ex-ante perspective through agents' trading opportunities. We provide two characterizations of a natural extension of the top-trading-cycles mechanism (TTC) through our fairness notions. Precisely, we show that in the presence of strategy-proofness and pair efficiency, internal fairness and external fairness together characterize TTC (Theorem 1). Also, strategy-proofness combined solely with procedural fairness also characterizes TTC (Theorem 2). Furthermore, by adding internal fairness, we establish our third TTC characterization, by relaxing Ekici's queuewise rationality to another voluntary participation condition, the center lower bound (Theorem 3). Finally, we define a core solution within this model and characterize it through TTC (Theorem 4). Our findings offer practical insights for market designers, particularly in contexts such as international cooperation in medical programs and worker exchange programs.

2504.07217 2026-03-03 econ.EM

Causal Inference under Interference through Designed Markets

Evan Munro

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In auction and matching markets, estimating the welfare effects of demand-side treatments is challenging because of spillovers through the mechanism. We develop a quasi-experimental approach that avoids parametric assumptions typically imposed by structural methods. For a class of strategy-proof "cutoff" mechanisms, we propose an estimator that runs a weighted and perturbed version of the mechanism on data from a single market. The estimator is semi-parametrically efficient, asymptotically normal, and robust to a wide class of demand-side specifications. We propose spillover-aware targeting rules with vanishing asymptotic regret. Empirically, spillovers diminish the effect of information on inequality in Chilean schools.

2603.01785 2026-03-03 econ.EM physics.soc-ph

Information Geometry of Bounded Rationality: Entropy--Regularised Choice with Hyperbolic and Elliptic Quantum Geometries

Anders Karlström, Christer Persson

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Models of bounded rationality include quantum--like (QL) models, which use Hilbert--space amplitudes to represent context and order effects, and entropy--regularised (ER) models, including rational inattention, which smooth expected utility by adding an information cost. We develop a unified information--geometric framework in which both arise from the same structure on the probability simplex. Starting from the Fisher--Rao geometry of the open simplex $Δ^{n-1}$, we formulate \emph{least--action rationality} (LAR) as a variational principle for decision dynamics in amplitude (square--root) coordinates and lift it to the cotangent phase space $N:=T^*\mathbb R^n$ of unnormalised amplitudes. The lift carries its canonical symplectic form and a para--Kähler geometry. For a linear evaluator $\widehat V=\widehat S+\widehat F$ with symmetric part $\widehat S$ and skew part $\widehat F$, the dynamics separate an evaluative channel from a circulatory (co--utility) channel. On a distinguished zero--residual Lagrangian leaf the flow closes as a split--complex (hyperbolic) Schrödinger--type evolution, and observable probabilities follow from a quadratic (Born--type) normalisation. When reduced to the simplex, the induced preference one--form decomposes into an exact utility component and a divergence--free co--utility component whose curvature measures path dependence. Context effects, order effects, and interference--like deviations from the law of total probability emerge as projections of this latent rational flow. Finally, standard complex (elliptic) quantum dynamics arises within this real symplectic phase space by imposing an additional Kähler polarisation that restricts admissible variations. Unitary evolution is thus a coherent restriction of the underlying least--action framework rather than a primitive postulate.

2603.01782 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

Charging station location planning for electric trucks under demand and grid uncertainty

Céline Pagnier, Tord Gunnar Holen, Thomas Haugen de Lange, Patrick Levin, Steffen J. S. Bakker, Peter Schütz

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Decarbonizing long-haul freight requires large-scale deployment of high-power charging infrastructure. This paper studies a multi-period charging station location problem that determines where and when to deploy charging capacity for battery-electric heavy-duty vehicles under uncertain future demand and local grid capacity availability. The problem is formulated as a two-stage stochastic mixed-integer program that maximizes covered electric freight flow. Feasible truck routes are generated a priori using a resource-constrained label-setting algorithm that enforces range limitations and driving-break regulations. To solve large-scale instances, an integer L-shaped decomposition method embedded in a branch-and-cut framework and accelerated by a deterministic warm start is implemented. Computational experiments are conducted on a nationwide Norwegian case study based on real candidate locations provided by a charging station operator. The approach solves instances intractable for a monolithic formulation and achieves near-optimal solutions within practical runtimes. For larger networks, the value of the stochastic solution is substantial, highlighting the importance of explicitly modeling uncertainty in long-term infrastructure planning. Optimal investments prioritize major freight corridors in early periods and subsequently reinforce and expand the network. Grid capacity constraints discourage large, concentrated stations and shift deployments toward more distributed layouts. Covered demand increases rapidly at low budget levels but exhibits diminishing returns as the network approaches saturation.

2603.01721 2026-03-03 econ.EM

Local Gaussian copula inference with structural breaks: testing dependence predictability

Alexander Mayer, Tatsushi Oka, Dominik Wied

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We propose a score test for dependence predictability in conditional copulas that is robust to temporal instabilities. Our semiparametric procedure accommodates flexible dynamics in the marginal processes and remains agnostic about the copula family by leveraging distributional regression techniques together with a local Gaussian representation of the copula link function. We derive the limiting distribution of our test statistic and propose a resampling scheme based on recent results for the moving block bootstrap of multi-stage estimators. Monte Carlo simulations and an empirical application illustrate the finite-sample performance of our methods.

2603.01496 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

Gender-Specific Effects of Prenatal Famine Exposure on Educational Attainment: Accounting for Selective Mortality

Hiroyuki Kasahara, Weina Zhou

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Selective mortality and fertility issues are persistent challenges in estimating the fetal origin effect, with attempts to address these issues being notably scarce. Evidence further suggests that selective mortality is more pronounced in males than in females. This study investigates the causal effects of prenatal exposure to the Great Chinese Famine on educational attainment by addressing gender-specific selection bias. We compare exposed individuals with their unexposed, same-gender siblings, using a famine intensity measure based on county-year level excess death rates. Our findings reveal remarkably similar consequences for both genders: on average, famine exposure increased illiteracy rates by 4 percentage points and decreased years of schooling by 0.3 years for both males and females. These results contribute to our understanding of the long-term impacts of prenatal malnutrition, while accounting for gender-specific selection biases.

2603.01492 2026-03-03 econ.EM

Identification and Estimation of Production Function and Consumer Demand Function under Monopolistic Competition from Revenue Data

Chun Pang Chow, Hiroyuki Kasahara, Yoichi Sugita

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We establish nonparametric identification of production functions, total factor productivity (TFP), price markups, and firms' output prices and quantities, as well as consumer demand, using firm-level revenue data, without observing output quantity, in a monopolistically competitive environment with a fully nonparametric demand system. This result overturns the widely held view -- formalized by Bond, Hashemi, Kaplan, and Zoch (2021) -- that output elasticities and markups are not nonparametrically identifiable from revenue data without quantity information. Under the additional restriction that demand satisfies the homothetic single-aggregator (HSA) structure of Matsuyama and Ushchev (2017), we further nonparametrically identify the representative consumer's utility function from firm-level revenue data. This new identification result enables counterfactual welfare analysis without parametric assumptions on preferences. We propose a semiparametric estimator that is feasible for standard firm-level datasets under a Cobb--Douglas production specification. Monte Carlo simulations show that the estimator performs well, while treating revenue as output induces substantial bias. Applying the estimator to Chilean manufacturing data, we reject the CES specification in favor of HSA, and find that market power reduces welfare by approximately 3%--6% of industry revenue in the three largest manufacturing industries in 1996.

2603.01258 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

Looking Back: The Changing Landscape of Abortion Care in Louisiana

Mayra Pineda-Torres, Yana Rodgers

Comments Published in American Journal of Public Health

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114 (5), May 2024, 463-466
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This article examines how COVID-19 and the Dobbs decision have impacted abortion services in Louisiana. COVID-19's introduction into an already restrictive landscape of abortion policies intensified the barriers that providers and communities faced, with disproportionate impacts on Black and Hispanic abortion seekers. The 2022 Dobbs decision marked the immediate enactment of Louisiana's abortion ban, resulting in even greater difficulties in accessing abortion services. Concerns raised by Roberts et al. (2021) about the negative effects of clinic closures have only grown since their prescient study.

2603.01247 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

Immigrant Women and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Intersectional Analysis of Frontline Occupational Crowding in the United States

Sarah Small, Yana Rodgers, Teresa Perry

Comments Published in Forum for Social Economics

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53 (3), July 2024, 281-306
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This paper examines changes in occupational crowding of immigrant women in frontline industries in the United States during the onset of COVID-19, and we contextualize their experiences against the backdrop of broader race-based and gender-based occupational crowding. Building on the occupational crowding hypothesis, which suggests that marginalized workers are crowded in a small number of occupations to prop up wages of socially-privileged workers, we hypothesize that immigrant, Black, and Hispanic workers were shunted into frontline work to prop up the health of others during the pandemic. Our analysis of American Community Survey microdata indicates that immigrant workers, particularly immigrant women, were increasingly crowded in frontline work during the onset of the pandemic. We also find that US-born Black and Hispanic workers disproportionately faced COVID-19 exposure in their work, but were not increasingly crowded into frontline occupations following the onset of the pandemic. The paper also provides a rationale for considering the occupational crowding hypothesis along the dimensions of both wages and occupational health.

2603.01117 2026-03-03 cs.DL cs.SI econ.GN q-fin.EC stat.AP

China leads scientific trends; the West launches new ones

Jeffrey W. Lockhart, Jamshid Sourati, Feng Shi, James Evans

Comments 16 pages, 4 figures

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How nations shape the scientific frontier matters for technological competition, but standard metrics, including publication counts, citations, and disruption indices, look backward and fail to distinguish between fundamentally different leadership strategies. We develop and validate two forward-looking model-based measures and apply them to tens of millions of articles since 1990. The first embeds research pathways within an evolving hypergraph of concepts and scientists to identify leadership in emerging areas--work that anticipates where the scientific crowd is heading. The second embeds evolving samples of ideas and disciplines drawn upon in past research to identify leadership in surprising new directions as unexpected combinations become routine and science reorganizes around them. China became the global leader in emerging areas roughly a decade ago, well before it led in volume, reflecting a capacity to detect and amplify nascent consensus at scale. The United States and Europe show the opposite profile: declining emergence shares but persistent leadership in prescient work, especially research bridging disciplinary boundaries. These patterns replicate across databases, attribution methods, and strategic domains, including AI, biotechnology, energy, and semiconductors. Nations lead science by reading the landscape or by reshaping it, and the institutional requirements for each strategy lie in tension. The distribution of these strategies promises to shape the global structure of technological leadership for decades.

2602.07667 2026-03-03 econ.EM stat.AP stat.ML

Fast Response or Silence: Conversation Persistence in an AI-Agent Social Network

Aysajan Eziz

Comments 32 pages, 6 figures, 18 tables

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Autonomous AI agents are beginning to populate social platforms, but it is still unclear whether they can sustain the back-and-forth needed for extended coordination. We study Moltbook, an AI-agent social network, using a first-week snapshot and introduce interaction half-life: how quickly a comment's chance of receiving a direct reply fades as the comment ages. Across tens of thousands of commented threads, Moltbook discussions are dominated by first-layer reactions rather than extended chains. Most comments never receive a direct reply, reciprocal back-and-forth is rare, and when replies do occur they arrive almost immediately -- typically within seconds -- implying persistence on the order of minutes rather than hours. Moltbook is often described as running on an approximately four-hour ``heartbeat'' check-in schedule; using aggregate spectral tests on the longest contiguous activity window, we do not detect a reliable four-hour rhythm in this snapshot, consistent with jittered or out-of-phase individual schedules. A contemporaneous Reddit baseline analyzed with the same estimators shows substantially deeper threads and much longer reply persistence. Overall, early agent social interaction on Moltbook fits a ``fast response or silence'' regime, suggesting that sustained multi-step coordination will likely require explicit memory, thread resurfacing, and re-entry scaffolds.

2601.01370 2026-03-03 econ.GN cs.SI q-fin.EC

Strategic Expression, Popularity Traps, and Welfare in Social Media

Zafer Kanik, Zaruhi Hakobyan

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Social media platforms systematically reward popularity over authenticity, incentivizing users to strategically tailor their expression for attention. In this paper, we introduce (i) popularity as a strategic expression mechanism, distinct from the canonical mechanisms of conformity, learning, persuasion, and (mis)information transmission in social networks, and (ii) a utilitarian framework for measuring user welfare that maps directly to observable platform metrics, filling a critical gap in the social media literature. In the model, agents hold fixed heterogeneous authentic opinions and derive utility gains from the popularity of their own posts -- measured by likes received, and utility gains (losses) from exposure to content that aligns with (diverges from) their authentic opinion. Social media interaction acts as a state-dependent welfare amplifier: light topics generate Pareto improvements, whereas intense topics make everyone worse off in a polarized society (e.g., political debates during elections). Moreover, strategic expression amplifies social media polarization during polarized events while dampening it during unified events (e.g., national celebrations). Consequently, strategic distortions magnify welfare outcomes, expanding aggregate gains in light topics while exacerbating losses in intense, polarized ones. Counterintuitively, strategic agents often face a popularity trap: posting a more popular opinion is individually optimal, yet collective action by similar agents eliminates their authentic opinion from the platform, leaving them worse off than under the authentic-expression benchmark. Homophilic algorithms that match users with preferred content -- widely used by platforms -- discipline popularity-driven behavior, narrowing the popularity trap region and limiting its welfare effects.

2511.11021 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

AI and Worker Well-Being: Differential Impacts Across Generational Cohorts and Genders

Voraprapa Nakavachara

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This paper investigates the relationship between AI use and worker well-being outcomes such as mental health, job enjoyment, and physical health and safety, using microdata from the OECD AI Surveys across seven countries. The results reveal that AI users are significantly more likely to report improvements across all three outcomes, with effects ranging from 8.9% to 21.3%. However, these benefits vary by generation and gender. Generation Y (1981-1996) shows the strongest gains across all dimensions, while Generation X (1965-1980) reports moderate improvements in mental health and job enjoyment. In contrast, Generation Z (1997-2012) benefits only in job enjoyment. As digital natives already familiar with technology, Gen Z workers may not receive additional gains in mental or physical health from AI, though they still experience increased enjoyment from using it. Baby Boomers (born before 1965) experience limited benefits, as they may not find these tools as engaging or useful. Women report stronger mental health gains, whereas men report greater improvements in physical health. These findings suggest that AI's workplace impact is uneven and shaped by demographic factors, career stage, and the nature of workers' roles.

2508.19585 2026-03-03 econ.TH

Preference for Verifiability

Hendrik Rommeswinkel

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Decision makers sometimes cannot observe the consequences of their actions ex-post. This paper axiomatically characterizes a decision model in which the decision maker cares about verifying that a good consequence has been achieved. Preferences over acts identify a set of events the decision maker expects to verify. Decision makers choose acts maximizing, in expectation over verifiable events, the worst-case utility consistent with each event. A dual model captures decision makers who instead seek to obscure poor outcomes from verification. As an application, firms choosing carbon-reduction technologies may prefer less efficient but more verifiable technologies to prove emission reductions to stakeholders.

2508.17407 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

General Social Agents

Benjamin S. Manning, John J. Horton

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Useful social science theories predict behavior across settings. However, applying a theory to make predictions in new settings is challenging: rarely can it be done without ad hoc modifications to account for setting-specific factors. We argue that AI agents put in simulations of those novel settings offer an alternative for applying theory, requiring minimal or no modifications. We present an approach for building such "general" agents that use theory-grounded natural language instructions, existing empirical data, and knowledge acquired by the underlying AI during training. To demonstrate the approach in settings where no data from that data-generating process exists--as is often the case in applied prediction problems--we design a heterogeneous population of 883,320 novel games. AI agents are constructed using human data from a small set of conceptually related but structurally distinct "seed" games. In preregistered experiments, on average, agents predict initial human play in a random sample of 1,500 games from the population better than (i) a cognitive hierarchy model, (ii) game-theoretic equilibria, and (iii) out-of-the-box agents. For a small set of separate novel games, these simulations predict responses from a new sample of human subjects better even than the most plausibly relevant published human data.

2507.07469 2026-03-03 stat.ML cs.LG econ.EM

A Projection-Based ARIMA Framework for Nonlinear Dynamics in Macroeconomic and Financial Time Series: Closed-Form Estimation and Rolling-Window Inference

Haojie Liu, Zihan Lin

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We introduce Galerkin-ARIMA and Galerkin-SARIMA, a projection-based extension of classical ARIMA/SARIMA that replaces rigid linear lag operators with low-dimensional Galerkin basis expansions while preserving the familiar AR-MA decomposition. Experiments on synthetic series and on quarterly GDP and daily S&P 500 returns show that Galerkin-SARIMA matches or improves forecast accuracy relative to classical ARIMA/SARIMA. Estimation is closed-form via a two-stage least-squares procedure, and the closed-form two-stage estimator enables efficient rolling-window re-estimation while preserving the familiar AR-MA operator structure, facilitating applications in central bank forecasting and portfolio risk management. We establish approximation-estimation trade-offs under weak dependence, provide consistency and asymptotic distributional results for the unpenalized estimator, compare prediction risk to classical SARIMA, and propose information-criterion selection of basis size. We further develop bootstrap-based inference for exogenous factor blocks and block-bootstrap prediction intervals that account for serial dependence and the two-stage generated-regressor structure.

2409.13333 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

Reference Points, Risk-Taking Behavior, and Competitive Outcomes in Sequential Settings

Masaya Nishihata, Suguru Otani

Comments 44 pages, 4 page appendix

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Understanding how competitive pressure affects risk-taking is crucial in sequential decision-making under uncertainty. This study examines these effects using bench press competition data, where individuals make risk-based choices under pressure. We estimate the impact of pressure on weight selection and success probability. Pressure from rivals increases attempted weights on average, but responses vary by gender, experience, and rivalry history. Counterfactual simulations show that removing pressure leads many lifters to select lower weights and achieve lower success rates, though some benefit. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity in how competition shapes both risk-taking and performance.

2407.15256 2026-03-03 math.ST econ.EM stat.TH

Weak-instrument-robust subvector inference in instrumental variables regression: A subvector Lagrange multiplier test and properties of subvector Anderson-Rubin confidence sets

Malte Londschien, Peter Bühlmann

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We propose a weak-instrument-robust subvector Lagrange multiplier test for instrumental variables regression. We show that it is asymptotically size-correct under a technical condition or as the number of instruments grows to infinity. This is the first weak-instrument-robust subvector test for instrumental variables regression to recover the degrees of freedom of the commonly used non-weak-instrument-robust Wald test. Additionally, we provide a closed-form solution for subvector confidence sets obtained by inverting the subvector Anderson-Rubin test. We show that they are centered around a k-class estimator. We show that the subvector confidence sets for single coefficients of the causal parameter are jointly bounded if and only if Anderson's likelihood-ratio test rejects the null hypothesis that the first-stage regression parameter is of reduced rank, that is, that the causal parameter is not identified. Finally, we show that if a confidence set obtained by inverting the Anderson-Rubin test is bounded and nonempty, it is equal to a Wald-based confidence set with a data-dependent confidence level. We explicitly compute this Wald-based confidence set and its confidence level.

2603.01014 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

Migration and Educational Assortative Mating in India: How Geographic Mobility Shapes Marriage Markets

Minali Grover, Ajay Sharma

Comments Review of Economics of the Household (2026)

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This paper examines how internal migration influences educational assortative mating patterns in India using Periodic Labour Force Survey data (2020-21). We analyze the association of migrant status and type of assortative mating, that is whether migrants are more likely to engage in homogamous (similar education) or heterogamous (different education) marriages compared to non-migrants. Results show migrants are significantly more likely to form educationally heterogamous marriages, with urban-to-urban migrants particularly prone to hypogamy (marrying higher-educated partners). These findings are validated using instrumental variables including crime rates, migrant networks, and unemployment rates. Family structure and marriage pool composition emerge as key mechanisms driving educational heterogamy among migrants, suggesting migration fundamentally alters marital formation preferences away from traditional educational homogamy patterns.

2603.00932 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

No Last Mile: A Theory of the Human Data Market

Ali Ansari, Mark Esposito, Ava Fitoussy, Liu Zhang

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The standard framing treats structured human-data work as transitional, a bridge between today's imperfect models and a future state where automation is complete. We challenge this view by modeling structured human data as a persistent production input: evaluation, rubric-based judgment, auditing, exception handling, and continual updates that convert raw model capability into dependable, deployable performance. These activities accumulate into a reusable AI capability stock that raises productivity by improving reliability on existing tasks and by expanding the frontier of task families for which AI can be used at high confidence. Crucially, this capability stock depreciates as tasks and contexts drift, standards evolve, and new edge cases emerge. In a tractable baseline model, an interior steady state implies a closed-form, strictly positive long-run labor share devoted to structured human-data work whenever depreciation is positive, a "no last mile" result in which maintenance demand persists even as models improve. We then microfound aggregate capability with a portfolio of task families featuring diminishing returns, frontier entry, and complementarity, generating reallocation toward low-maturity and bottleneck families and a Roy-style mechanism for within-structured wage dispersion. Finally, we map model objects to observable proxies using standard data layers, and provide a conservative calibration suggesting a 5-7% steady-state structured labor share in the long run.

2603.00868 2026-03-03 econ.EM

A Joint Analysis of Sensitivity to Anticipation and Parallel Trends Violations

Gianna Fenaroli

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Two key identifying assumptions used to justify difference-in-differences are parallel trends and no anticipation, yet both may fail in practice. I propose a class of assumptions on anticipation and derive closed-form, sharp bounds on the average treatment effect on the treated while simultaneously relaxing parallel trends. Deviations from both assumptions are jointly disciplined using observed pre-trends. When some anticipation is imposed, the identified set under joint deviations can be shorter than under parallel trends violations alone. These bounds inform a sensitivity analysis assessing the robustness of qualitative conclusions to anticipation and parallel trends violations. I illustrate with an empirical application.

2603.00858 2026-03-03 econ.TH cs.AI cs.IT cs.SY eess.SY math.IT

Artificial Superintelligence May be Useless: Equilibria in the Economy of Multiple AI Agents

Huan Cai, Ziqing Lu, Catherine Xu, Weiyu Xu, Jie Zheng

Comments 20 pages

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With recent development of artificial intelligence, it is more common to adopt AI agents in economic activities. This paper explores the economic actions of agents, including human agents and AI agents, in an economic game of trading products/services, and the equilibria in this economy involving multiple agents. We derive a range of equilibrium results and their corresponding conditions using a Markov chain stationary distribution based model. One distinct feature of our model is that we consider the long-term utility generated by economic activities instead of their short-term benefits. For the model consisting of two agents, we fully characterize all the possible economic equilibria and conditions. Interestingly, we show that unless each agent can at least double (not merely increase) its marginal utility by purchasing the other agent's products/services, purchasing the other agent's products/services will not happen in any economic equilibrium. We further extend our results to three and more agents, where we characterize more economic equilibria. We find that in some equilibria, the ``more powerful'' AI agents contribute zero utility to ``less capable'' agents.

2603.00830 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

Who Benefits? Employer Subsidization of Reproductive Healthcare and Implications for Reproductive Justice

Annie McGrew, Yana Rodgers

Comments Published in Feminist Economics

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Feminist Economics 31 (1), March 2025, 53-78
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With the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, many U.S. employers announced they would reimburse employees for abortion-related travel expenses. This action complements increasingly common employer policies subsidizing employee access to assisted reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilization and egg freezing. This article reflects on why employers offer these benefits and whether they enhance or undermine reproductive justice. From the employer's perspective, abortion and assisted reproductive technologies help women to plan childbearing around the demands of their jobs. Both are associated with delayed childbirth and reduced fertility, which lower the costs of motherhood to employers. However, firm subsidization of these services does not further reproductive justice because it reifies structures which incentivize women to delay childbirth and reduce fertility, and it reinforces economic and reproductive inequalities. We conclude by questioning whether reproductive justice is possible without transforming the economy so that it prioritizes care over profits.

2603.00722 2026-03-03 econ.GN q-fin.EC

On Repeat: Does Iteration Drive Innovation?

Evgeny Kagan, Christian Jost, Tobias Lieberum, Sebastian Schiffels

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Motivated by the widespread adoption of iterative project management techniques, we study the effects of workflow -- iterative or sequential -- on innovative behavior and performance. We conduct a series of laboratory experiments. Our first experiment shows that, in an open-ended creative challenge, iterative task completion leads to better outcomes than sequential task completion. In the second experiment we show that the advantage of iterative workflow further extends to innovation settings that do not involve idea generation. A key mechanism driving the advantage of iterative work is that it leads to frequent task switching, prompting workers to perform a broader search for the best available solution. In the third experiment we delve deeper into the search process and show that sequential work indeed leads to more myopic idea refinement behaviors, often ending in a (suboptimal) local maximum. Our results suggest that iterative workflow improves performance across multiple, structurally distinct innovation settings. We also identify three boundary conditions. First, iterative workflow helps achieve quick gains, but its performance advantage narrows over time. Therefore, workflow effects are stronger when balanced performance across project components is required, but weaker when excellence in one component can offset poor performance in others. Second, workflow has minimal effect on performance in tasks that do not require the worker to perform broad exploration. Third, workflow effects are minimal when workers complete the easier component first.

2603.00580 2026-03-03 econ.EM

A Sensitivity Analysis of the Surrogate Index Approach for Estimating Long-Term Treatment Effects

Yanqin Fan, Carlos A. Manzanares, Hyeonseok Park, Yuan Qi

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This paper develops a sensitivity analysis of the surrogacy assumption for the surrogate index approach in Athey et al. [2025b]. We introduce "Weighted Surrogate Indices (WSIs)," the analog of the surrogate index under the surrogacy assumption. We show that under comparability, the ATE on WSI identifies the ATE on the long-term outcome when a copula of the treatment and the long-term outcome conditional on baseline covariates and surrogates is known. When the copula is unknown, we establish the identified set of the ATE on the long-term outcome. Furthermore, we construct debiased estimators of the ATE for any given copula and develop asymptotically valid inference in both point-identified and partially identified cases. Using data from a poverty alleviation program in Pakistan, we demonstrate the importance of sensitivity checks as well as the usefulness of our approach.

2603.00365 2026-03-03 stat.AP econ.GN q-fin.EC

Randomized Recruitment Driven Sampling

Adam Visokay, Laura Boudreau, Rachel M. Heath, Tyler H. McCormick

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Surveys are critical inputs for research and policy, yet, enumerating a sampling frame is logistically infeasible or financially nonviable in many circumstances, such as during pandemics, natural disasters, or armed conflict. Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) does not require a sampling frame, yet non-random peer recruitment often introduces substantial bias, particularly under high homophily. We introduce and evaluate Randomized Recruitment Driven Sampling (RRDS), a cellphone-based adaptation of RDS that incorporates researcher-controlled randomization into each recruitment wave. While standard RDS is necessary for stigmatized groups where network transparency is infeasible, RRDS is designed for low-stigma populations that become difficult to access due to logistical barriers. In these contexts, RRDS enforces the random recruitment assumption that traditional RDS relies upon but rarely achieves. Through simulation and an experiment surveying Bangladeshi garment workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, we demonstrate that RRDS produces less biased estimates and improved confidence interval coverage compared to traditional RDS. RRDS offers a scalable, remote-compatible alternative for studying low-stigma groups in challenging contexts where large-scale probability sampling is unsafe or infeasible.

2603.00291 2026-03-03 econ.EM stat.AP

Anticorruption Enforcement and Sale Mechanism Choice in China's Land Market

Julia Manso

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英文摘要

Upon taking office in late 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched one of the most intensive anticorruption campaigns in the history of the People's Republic of China. Prior to the campaign, China's land market suffered from corruption, particularly surrounding sale method selection (auction versus listing). Listing is a two-stage sale mechanism that prior research has identified as more susceptible to corruption, leading to lower prices. This paper examines the campaign's impact on land allocation, focusing on whether corruption influences the choice of sale method and, in turn, land sale prices. This paper is the first to utilize Blackwell and Yamauchi (2021, 2024)'s marginal structural model with fixed effects in the inverse probability of treatment weighting model; absorbing time-invariant unobserved confounding and utilizing a set of time-varying covariates as controls, this model can estimate causal effects in the land sale case. I find that indictments in a prefecture cause a statistically significant drop in the probability that land is sold via listing$\unicode{x2014}$an effect that is further compounded when indictments occur in consecutive months. Sensitivity analyses indicate that any violations of the identification assumptions would bias estimates towards zero, confirming the negative effect. A second marginal structural model shows that both mean and median land sale prices increase in the presence of indictments. Together, these results suggest that the anticorruption campaign not only deterred actual corrupt allocation practices, but also impacted the discretionary use of listings.