Thesis advisor: Arthur Lewbel / The thesis includes two essays. The first essay, Inequality Moments in Estimation of Discrete Games with Incomplete Information and Multiple Equilibria, develops a method for estimation of static discrete games with incomplete information, which delivers consistent estimates of parameters even when games have multiple equilibria. Every Bayes-Nash equilibrium in a discrete game of incomplete information is associated with a set of choice probabilities. I use maximum and minimum equilibrium choice probabilities as upper and lower bounds on empirical choice probabilities to construct moment inequalities. In general, estimation with moment inequalities results in partial identification. I show that point identification is achievable if the payoffs are functions of a sufficient number of explanatory variables with a real line domain and outcome-specific coefficients associated with them. The second essay, Tenancy Rent Control and Credible Commitment in Maintenance, co-authored with Richard Arnott, investigates the effect of tenancy rent control on maintenance and welfare. Under tenancy rent control, rents are regulated within a tenancy but not between tenancies. The essay analyzes the effects of tenancy rent control on housing quality, maintenance, and rehabilitation. Since the discounted revenue received over a fixed-duration tenancy depends only on the starting rent, intuitively the landlord has an incentive to spruce up the unit between tenancies in order to show it well, but little incentive to maintain the unit well during the tenancy. The essay formalizes this intuition, and presents numerical examples illustrating the efficiency loss from this effect. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_101712 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Shevyakhova, Elizaveta |
| Publisher | Boston College |
| Source Sets | Boston College |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, thesis |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. |
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