Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 9th May 2025, 09:46:13am EDT

 
 
Session Overview
Session
Track W1-1: Information and the Data Economy
Time:
Wednesday, 21/May/2025:
8:30am - 9:15am

Session Chair: Maryam Farboodi, MIT Sloan
Discussant: Peter Hansen, Purdue
Location: Gateway South 216


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Presentations

The Quiet Hand of Regulation: Harnessing Uncertainty and Disagreement

Daniel Andrei1, Lorenzo Garlappi2

1McGill; 2UBC

Regulating externalities is particularly challenging in the presence of uncertainty and disagreement among economic agents. Traditional Pigouvian and Coasean approaches often fail because they require either precise knowledge of externality costs or frictionless bargaining. We propose an “uncertainty-based regulation” (UBR) mechanism that harnesses heterogeneous information and disagreement among firms to achieve socially efficient outcomes without requiring explicit information revelation. UBR modifies firms’ payoffs based on their deviation from the aggregate action, weighted by observable outcomes, effectively creating a synthetic market that internalizes externalities. This mechanism implicitly defines property rights, aligns incentives, and elicits private information without direct negotiation. We show that UBR achieves team efficiency, dominates conventional regulation, incentivizes information acquisition, and remains robust even when firms distrust each others’ signals. Moreover, if brought to a vote, it would receive unanimous support, making it politically viable.

Andrei-The Quiet Hand of Regulation-762.pdf


 
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