This is the first of three volumes containing edited versions of papers and commentaries presented at invited symposium sessions of the Tenth World Congress of the Econometric Society, held in Shanghai in August 2010. The papers summarize and interpret key developments in economics and econometrics and they discuss future directions for a wide variety of topics, covering both theory and application. Written by the leading specialists in their fields, these volumes provide a unique, accessible survey of progress on the discipline. The first volume primarily addresses economic theory, with specific focuses on nonstandard markets, contracts, decision theory, communication and organizations, epistemics and calibration, and patents.