Contact Information
Department of Economics
Northwestern University
2211 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
Phone: 872-203-5307
Email: bolixu2022@u.northwestern.edu
Education
Ph.D., Economics, Northwestern University, 2023 (expected)
MA, Economics, Peking University, 2017
BA, Economics and Mathematics, Peking University, 2014
Research Interests
Primary: Microeconomic Theory
Secondary: Organizational Economics, Industrial Organization, Financial Economics
Job Market Papers
[1] Stable Partnerships and Monitoring Design [draft] [SSRN]
Abstract: We study dynamic partnerships where players can choose to exit, and those who have exited continue to accrue benefits as long as some remaining players keep contributing to the partnership. We characterize the conditions for a partnership to be stable in the sense that no player exits on the equilibrium path. We show that a partnership switches between being stable and unstable as the number of partners grows, and increasing partners’ abilities may harm a partnership. Moreover, when players can choose efforts over time in addition to their exit decisions, noisy monitoring of other players’ efforts can facilitate cooperation. We design a simple monitoring structure of noisy pass-or-fail that achieves the first-best outcome.
[2] Free-Riding in Stochastic Partnerships [draft] [SSRN]
Abstract: We study dynamic partnerships where the output evolves stochastically, each player can exit at any time, and players who have exited continue to accrue some benefits if the remaining players keep contributing to the partnership. Players can free-ride on their partners’ contributions, knowing that such misbehavior may trigger subsequent defections of their partners. The unique Pareto-undominated Markov perfect equilibrium may feature a curse of productivity: An increase in the output of a partnership may strictly harm all the players by exacerbating free-riding. Another main finding is that a partnership’s ability to sustain cooperation is non-monotonic in its group size.
Working Papers
[3] Optimal Disclosure in Two-Sided Matching [draft] [SSRN]
Abstract: A matching platform elicits information about two customers’ (quality) types and decides how to disclose that information. The platform intends to persuade the customers to form a match, knowing that adverse selection may occur (and undermine matchmaking) when the customers are uncertain about each other’s type. We show that the optimal disclosure policy features upper censorship: It pools the customer types above a threshold and fully reveals the rest. This policy is optimal because it not only maximizes the chance that each customer is accepted by his partner but also completely avoids the adverse selection problem.
[4] Reserve Price Signaling with Public Information: Evidence from Online Auto Auctions (with Junyan Guan), Revise & Resubmit at RAND Journal of Economics [SSRN]
Abstract: This paper considers an auction model in which a seller’s choice of reserve price signals her private information about the object’s quality. We estimate the model using a novel dataset from a large online auto auction platform. We find that the signaling incentive could cost the seller 4% of her profit and decrease the probability of sale by 15 percentage points. Counterfactual simulations suggest that a secret reserve price can improve both the seller’s profit and probability of sale, which supports the prevalent use of secret reserve prices in practice.
Work in Progress
[5] Revision Games with Soft Close: An Equilibrium Approach to Farsighted Behavior (with Bruno Strulovici)
In a strategic-form game, each player can revise his strategy as many times as he wants. The strategy profile is pinned down when all the players stop revising. What is the equilibrium?
[6] Optimal Test Design without Commitment (with Yingkai Li)
A worker sequentially interacts with multiple employers. Each employer schedules a test about the worker’s type and decides whether to offer a job. Upon receiving an offer, the worker may become more optimistic about his own type and thus reject the offer. What is the optimal test for the employers?
[7] Dynamic Delegated Search
A customer delegates a realtor to search for houses. The realtor observes available houses over time but can choose to hide some of them from the customer. The realtor’s incentive is to sell an expensive house while the customer privately knows her preference. What is the optimal strategy for the realtor?
[8] Strategic Information Acquisition with Payoff Externalities
A collective action is successful only when two players both join. Each player individually acquires information about the benefit of the action and decides when to initiate it. What makes the collective action happen?
Teaching
Microeconomics: General Equilibrium (Ph.D.)
Microeconomics: Game Theory (Ph.D.)
Asset Pricing Theory (Ph.D.)
Game Theory (undergrad)
Environmental Economics (undergrad)
Principles of Economics (undergrad)
Basic Finance (MBA)
References
Prof. Alessandro Pavan (committee co-chair)
Prof. Bruno Strulovici (committee co-chair)
Prof. Asher Wolinsky
Prof. Michael Fishman
Prof. Benjamin Golub