Thomas R. Palfrey
Flintridge Foundation Professor of Economics and Political Science
Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

California Institute of Technology

 

E-mail: trp at hss.caltech.edu
Office: 301A Baxter Hall
Phone: (626) 395-4088
Fax: (626) 405-9841


CV


 

Some recent publications

 

Cursed Sequential Equilibrium (with M.-J. Fong and P.-H. Lin), American Economic Review, Forthcoming.

 

Cognitive Hierarchies for Games in Extensive Form  (with P.-H. Lin), 2024.  Journal of Economic Theory, 220 (September): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jet.2024.105871.

 

Organizing for Collective Action: Olson Revisited (with M. Battaglini), 2024. Journal of Political Economy, 132 (9): 2881-2936.

 

Prisoners’ Dilemma and Coordination Games Played by Teams of Players (with J. Kim), 2023. Games and Economic Behavior, Forthcoming.

 

Bilateral Conflict: An Experimental Study of Strategic Effectiveness and Equilibrium  (with C. Holt), 2024. American Journal of Political Science, 64 (4): 1431-1446.

 

Games Played by Teams of Players (with J. Kim and J. Zeidel), 2022. AEJ: Microeconomics, 14 (November): 122-157.

 

Trading Votes for Votes: A Laboratory Study (with A. Casella), 2021, Games and Economic Behavior, 125 (January):1-26.

 

The Political Economy of Public Debt: A Laboratory Study (with M. Battaglini and S. Nunnari), Journal of the European Economic Association, August 2020, 18(4): 1969–2012.

 

Ignorance and Bias in Collective Decisions (with A. Elbittar, A. Gomberg, and C. Martinelli) Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2020, 174(June): 332-359.

 

The Effects of Income Mobility and Tax Persistence on Income Redistribution and Inequality (with M. Agranov), 2020, European Economic Review, 123:April Online Appendix.

 

Recent working papers

 

Strategic Complexity Promotes Egalitarianism in Legislative Bargaining (with M. Agranov, N. Ali, and B.D. Bernheim), July 2025.

 

Crisis Bargaining with Collective Decision Making  (with J. Kim and J. Zeidel), Working Paper, California Institute of Technology, January 2025.

 

Dynamic Collective Action and the Power of Large Numbers (with M. Battaglini), NBER Working Paper # 32473, August 2024.

 

A Note on Cursed Sequential Equilibrium and Sequential Cursed Equilibrium (with M.-J. Fong and P.-H. Lin), Social Science Working Paper # 1467, California Institute of Technology, April 2023.