No abstract

We investigate a matching game with transferable utility when some of the characteristics of the players are unobservable to the analyst. We allow for a wide class of distributions of unobserved heterogeneity, subject only to a separability assumption that generalizes Choo and Siow (2006). We first show that the stable matching maximizes a social gain function that trades off two terms. The first term is simply the average surplus due to the observable characteristics; and the second one can be interpreted as a generalized entropy function that reflects the impact of the unobserved characteristics. We use this result to derive simple closed-form formulae that identify the joint surplus in every possible match and the equilibrium utilities of all participants, given any known distribution of unobserved heterogeneity. Moreover, we show that if transfers are observed, then the pre-transfer utilities of both partners are also identified. We conclude by discussing some empirical approaches suggested by these results for the study of marriage markets, hedonic prices, and the market for CEOs.

Several recent articles on empirical contract theory and insurance have tested for a positive correlation between coverage and ex post risk, as predicted by standard models of pure adverse selection or pure moral hazard. We show here that the positive correlationproperty can be extended to general setups: competitive insurance markets and cases where risk aversion is public. We test our results on a French dataset. Our tests confirm that the estimated correlation is positive; they also suggest the presence of market power.

In this paper we investigate the attitudes toward risk of bettors in British horse races. The model we use allows us to go beyond the expected utility framework and to explore various alternative proposals by estimating a multinomial model on a 34,443-race data set. We find that rank-dependent utility models do not fit the data noticeably better than expected utility models. On the other hand, cumulative prospect theory has higher explanatory power. Our preferred estimates suggest a pattern of local risk aversion similar to that proposed by Friedman and Savage.