Jinzhe Wang (王今者)

This paper studies the joint design of portable diagnostic expertise and bonus. A firm designs a worker's expertise, modeled as a reusable information structure, and performance pay. The worker decides whether to leave with acquired expertise before diagnosing and solving an unknown problem. A worker with expertise can make better diagnoses and exert higher hidden effort. Different expertise profiles can differ in internal productivity while keeping the same outside value. We show that the optimal expertise profile admits a Threshold Diagnostic Structure (TDS) that preserves diagnosis of common problems while pooling rarer ones within nested categories. To respond to a higher outside value of expertise, the firm alternates between preserving expertise with a retention premium and coarsening it to a lower bonus level, generating a non-monotone bonus response. The worker's expertise improves production even under extreme retention pressure. The model provides an informational theory of endogenous specificity.

This paper studies preference aggregation in sequential majority voting with two candidates. Voters have heterogeneous preferences, are uncertain about the distribution of preferences, and incur a social-pressure cost from voting for the losing candidate. We characterize all symmetric Markov equilibria exhibiting a two-stage structure: a learning stage followed by herding once either candidate’s lead reaches a threshold. We characterize the conditions for equilibria existence and show that stronger social pressure and greater distributional uncertainty hinder preference aggregation. We also identify a class of resistant equilibria, in which voters become more willing to act sincerely as their preferred candidate falls behind, until herding begins. Finally, we study welfare across voting positions. An influence–risk trade-off implies that early voters bear more risk but exert greater influence, while later voters are more protected but less influential. Consequently, although stronger social pressure reduces welfare for all voters, it makes later voters relatively better off than early voters within an equilibrium. Moreover, when comparing coexisting equilibria under the same parameters, improvements in preference aggregation need not be Pareto improving.