arXiv subjects

Jean-Michel Benkert

Publications and source records attributed to Jean-Michel Benkert.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Time is Knowledge: What Response Times Reveal

Response times contain information about economically relevant but unobserved variables like willingness to pay, preference intensity, quality, or happiness. We provide a general characterization of the properties of latent variables that can be detected using response time data. Our theoretical framework unifies and generalizes existing results in the literature and gives rise to many new applications. We illustrate the novel insights that the method can deliver through three empirical applications: identifying an optimal nudge, testing decreasing marginal happiness of income, and predicting treatment heterogeneity.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2026

A Theory of Likes

We study binary, non-strategic ratings when consumer preferences reflect a combination of objective quality differences between products and idiosyncratic taste. A rating then decomposes into objective and subjective content. Rating systems that are extremely strict or extremely lenient only convey objective content, maximizing consumer welfare when the population is not biased toward a particular product. With a biased population, less extreme rating systems that convey subjective content can be valuable. In many environments, a sales-maximizing platform prefers lenient rating systems, creating a conflict with welfare maximization.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2025

Strategic Attribute Learning

A researcher allocates a budget of informative tests across multiple unknown attributes to influence a decision-maker. We derive the researcher's equilibrium learning strategy by solving an auxiliary single-player problem. The attribute weights in this problem depend on how much the researcher and the decision-maker disagree. If the researcher expects an excessive response to new information, she forgoes learning altogether. In an organizational context, we show that a manager favors more diverse analysts as the hierarchical distance grows. In another application, we show how an appropriately opposed advisor can constrain a discriminatory politician, and identify the welfare-inequality Pareto frontier of researchers.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2025

Startup Acquisitions: Acquihires and Talent Hoarding

We study how competitive forces may drive firms to inefficiently acquire startup talent. In our model, two rival firms have the capacity to acquire and integrate a startup operating in an orthogonal market. We show that firms may pursue such acquihires primarily as a preemptive strategy, even when they appear unprofitable in isolation. Thus, acquihires, even absent traditional competition-reducing effects, need not be benign, as they can lead to inefficient talent allocation. Additionally, our analysis underscores that such talent hoarding can diminish consumer surplus and exacerbate job volatility for acquihired employees.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2025

Never-ending Search for Innovation

We provide a model of investment in innovation that is dynamic, features multiple heterogeneous research projects of which only one potentially leads to success, and in each period, the researcher chooses the set of projects to invest in. We show that if a search for innovation starts, it optimally does not end until the innovation is found -- which will be never with a strictly positive probability.

econ.GN↗