Joel Watson

Brief Curriculum Vitae


EDUCATION

  • Ph.D., Economics, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, June 1992.
  • B.A., Economics, University of California, San Diego, March 1988.
  • M.A. (honorary), Oxford University, November 1992.

EMPLOYMENT

  • Chairperson, Department of Economics, University of California, San Diego, 2006-2008.
  • Professor, University of California, San Diego, 2002-present.
  • Visiting Fellow, Corporate Law Center, Yale Law School, 2006.
  • Associate Professor, University of California, San Diego, 1998-2002.
  • Visiting Professor, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 2000.
  • Visiting Professor, Cowles Foundation, Yale University, 1998-1999.
  • Assistant Professor, Economics, University of California, San Diego, 1994-1998.
  • Prize Research Fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford University, 1992-1994.
  • Junior Dean, Nuffield College, 1993.
  • Visiting Lecturer, University of California, San Diego, Summer 1993.
  • Consultant/Intern, The RAND Corporation, 1991-1992.
  • Clerk, Wright and L'Estrange (a San Diego corporate law firm), 1985-1989.

GRANTS

  • National Science Foundation grant SBR-9422196, "The Dynamics of Relationships with Incomplete Information," 1995-1996.
  • National Science Foundation grant SBR-9630270 (with Garey Ramey), "Markets and Institutions: A Matching Approach," 1996-1998.
  • National Science Foundation grant SBR-9975277 (with Garey Ramey and Wouter den Haan), "Contracts, Relationships, and Real Activities," 1999-2000.
  • National Science Foundation grant SES-0095207, "Layered Contract, Enforcement Institutions, and Intermediaries," 2001-2002.
  • Japanese Banker's Association grant (with Makoto Shimoji), 2004.

PROFESSIONAL DISTINCTIONS

  • Referee: American Economic Review, American Journal of Political Science, Econometrica, Economic Design, Economic Journal, European Economic Review, European Journal of Political Economy, Games and Economic Behavior, International Economic Review, International Journal of Game Theory, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Italian Ministry for Education University and Research, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Journal of Political Economy, Mathematical Social Sciences, Rand Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics, Review of Economic Studies, Social Choice and Welfare, the National Science Foundation, and various book publishers.
  • Co-editor, The B.E. Journals in Theoretical Economics, 2004-present.
  • Editorial Board Member, Games and Economic Behavior, 2005-present.
  • Editorial Board Member, The International Journal of Game Theory, 2003-present.
  • Editorial Board Member, The B.E. Journals in Theoretical Economics, 2000-2004.
  • Program Organizer (Economics), First World Congress of the Game Theory Society.
  • Member, American Economic Association, The Econometric Society.

PUBLICATIONS (including manuscripts in press)

BOOKS

  • Strategy: An Introduction to Game Theory, New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2002.

  • Instructor's Manual for Strategy, available from W. W. Norton and Company, 2002.

ARTICLES

  1. "Contract, Mechanism Design, and Technological Detail," Econometrica 75 (2007): 55-81. (Recent UCSD working paper version: )

  2. "John Forbes Nash, Jr.," to appear in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (2nd), L. Bloom and S. Durlauf (eds.), Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

  3. "Clusters and Bridges in Networks of Entrepreneurs," with Jim Rauch, to appear in The Missing Links: Formation and Decay of Economic Networks, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, forthcoming 2007. (Pre-publication version: )

  4. "Hard Evidence and Mechanism Design," with Jesse Bull, Games and Economic Behavior, in press (2006). (Working paper version: )

  5. "Evidence Disclosure and Verifiability," with Jesse Bull, Journal of Economic Theory 118 (Issue 1, September 2004): 1-31.

  6. "Network Intermediaries in International Trade," with James Rauch, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy 13 (2004): 69-93.

  7. "The Law and Economics of Costly Contracting," with Alan Schwartz, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 20 (April 2004): 2-31. (Working paper version: )

  8. "Liquidity Flows and Fragility of Business Enterprises," with Wouter den Haan and Garey Ramey, Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003): 1215-1241.

  9. "Starting Small in an Unfamiliar Environment," with Jim Rauch, International Journal of Industrial Organization 21 (2003): 1021-1042.

  10. "Contractual Intermediaries," with Garey Ramey, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 18 (2002): 362-384.

  11. "Starting Small and Commitment," Games and Economic Behavior 38 (2002): 176-199.

  12. "Bilateral Trade and Opportunism in a Matching Market," with Garey Ramey, Contributions to Theoretical Economics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2001), Article 3.

  13. "Job Destruction and Propagation of Shocks," with Wouter den Haan and Garey Ramey, American Economic Review 90 (2000): 482-498.

  14. "Job Destruction and the Experiences of Displaced Workers," with Wouter den Haan and Garey Ramey, Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy 52 (2000): 87-128.

  15. "Contract-Theoretic Approaches to Wages and Displacement," with Wouter den Haan and Garey Ramey, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review 81(3) (1999).

  16. "Starting Small and Renegotiation," Journal of Economic Theory 85 (1999): 52-90.

  17. "Conditional Dominance, Rationalizability, and Game Forms," with Makoto Shimoji, Journal of Economic Theory 83 (1998): 161-195.

  18. "Alternating-Offer Bargaining with Two-Sided Incomplete Information," Review of Economic Studies 65 (1998): 573-594.

  19. "Multiple-Issue Bargaining and Axiomatic Solutions," with Clara Ponsati, International Journal of Game Theory 26 (1997): 501-524.

  20. "Contractual Fragility, Job Destruction, and Business Cycles," with Garey Ramey, Quarterly Journal of Economics 112 (1997): 873-911.

  21. "On `Reputation' Refinements with Heterogeneous Beliefs," with Pierpaolo Battigalli, Econometrica 65 (1997): 369-374.

  22. "Learning about a Population of Agents and the Evolution of Trust and Cooperation," with Anthony Bower and Steve Garber, International Journal of Industrial Organization 15 (1997): 165-190.

  23. "Reputation in Repeated Games with no Discounting," Games and Economic Behavior 15 (1996): 82-109.

  24. "Information Transmission when the Informed Party is Confused," Games and Economic Behavior 12 (1996): 143-161.

  25. "Cooperation in the Infinitely Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma with Perturbations," Games and Economic Behavior 7(1994): 260-285.

  26. "A 'Reputation' Refinement without Equilibrium," Econometrica 61 (1993): 199-205.

  27. "Communication and Superior Cooperation in Two-Player Normal Form Games," Economics Letters 35 (1991): 267-271.

WORKING PAPERS / PAPERS IN REVIEW

(Papers are posted in pdf format --- click on to download.)

  1. "Hold-Up and Durable Trading Opportunities" (2007), with Chris Wignall.

  2. "Contract and Mechanism Design in Settings with Multi-Period Trade" (2005r2006).

  3. "Contract and Game Theory: Basic Concepts for Settings with Finite Horizons" (2006, under revision, older version posted here).

  4. "Testing and the Composition of the Labor Pool" (2002r2007), with Johnathan Boone.

  5. "Are There Too Many Entrepreneurs? A Model of Client-Based Entrepreneurship" (2003r2004, under revision), with Jim Rauch.

  6. "The Renegotiation-Proofness Principle and Costly Renegotiation" (2002, under revision), with Jim Brennan.

  7. "Recurrent Trade Agreements and the Value of External Enforcement" (2000r2007), with Mikhail Klimenko and Garey Ramey.

  8. "Conditioning Institutions and Renegotiation" (1998r1999, under revision), with Garey Ramey.

CURRENT RESEARCH

Assorted projects on contract, game theory, and institutions...