Higher cognitive ability is associated with lower entries in a p-beauty contest:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268109001450

Pre-College Human Capital Investment and Affirmative Action: A Structural Policy Analysis of US College Admissions: 

http://home.uchicago.edu/~hickmanbr/uploads/AA_Empirical_paper.pdf

The Economics of Spam:

http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.26.3.87

A History of U.S. Debt:

http://www.tomsargent.com/research/debt_limit_2015_final.pdf