Behavioral Economics Commons^™

The Case For Affirmative Auction: From Conscience To Coffers, Ian Ayres, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

The Federal Communications Commission’s auction of wireless communication licenses last fall has been criticized as a huge Government giveaway because of the substantial bidding preferences granted to women and minorities. In March, Federal court action delayed the FCC’s June auction until August to consider the legality of similar preferences. But far from being a giveaway, affirmative action actually increased the total amount paid to the Government by about $15 million. Women and minority bidders were granted a 40 percent bidding credit on certain licenses and the right to pay the Government in installments over 10 years at a favorable rate. …

In Defence Of Exploitation, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

The concept of exploitation is thought to be central to Marx's Critique of capitalism. John Roemer, an analytical (then-) Marxist economist now at Yale, attacked this idea in a series of papers and books in the 1970s-1990s, arguing that Marxists should be concerned with inequality rather than exploitation -- with distribution rather than production, precisely the opposite of what Marx urged in The Critique of the Gotha Progam.

This paper expounds and criticizes Roemer's objections and his alternative inequality based theory of exploitation, while accepting some of his criticisms. It may be viewed as a companion paper to my What's …

Philosophy, Rationality And Argumentation (Libro: Filosofía, Racionalidad Y Argumentación) Spanish, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

My interest is to understand the problems with some careful handling of the issues, I believe, relevant. Aristotle, Sophocles, Descartes, Hobbes, Kant, Foucault, Popper and other thinkers, are analyzed in their own texts, or in other cases of individual straight to interpret the problems they posed. It is "the freedom the individual, "" democracy "," body "," man, "language" "Ethics," "rationality," "the argumentacin" etc.. For the reader is book support, a resource for which he is challenged to read reseados texts, a letter with ways to analyze in different directions to locate each one that cause you most concern

Money Out Of Thin Air: The Nationwide Narrowband Pcs Auction, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

The Federal Communications Commission held its first auction of radio spectrum at the Nationwide Narrowband PCS Auction in July 1994. The simultaneous multiple-round auction, which lasted five days, was an ascending bid auction in which all licenses were offered simultaneously. This paper describes the auction rules and how bidders prepared for the auction. The full history of bidding is presented. Several questions for auction theory are discussed. In the end, the government collected $617 million for ten licenses. The auction was viewed by all as a huge success—an excellent example of bringing economic theory to bear on practical problems of …

Decption And Mutual Trust: A Reply To Strudler, Peter Cramton, J Gregory Dees

Peter Cramton

Alan Strudler has written a stimulating and provocative article about deception in negotiation. He presents his views, in part, in contrast with our earlier work on the Mutual Trust Perspective. We believe that Strudler is wrong in his account of the ethics of deception in negotiation and in his quick dismissal of the Mutual Trust Perspective. Though his mistakes may be informative, his views are potentially harmful to business practice. In this paper, we present arguments against Strudler’s position and attempt to salvage the Mutual-Trust Perspective from his attack. Strudler’s work reaffirms the need for a more pragmatic approach to …

Ratifiable Mechanisms: Learning From Disagreement, Peter Cramton, Thomas R. Palfrey

Peter Cramton

In a mechanism design problem, participation constraints require that all types prefer the proposed mechanism to some status quo. If equilibrium play in the status quo mechanism depends on the players’ beliefs, then the inference drawn if someone objects to the proposed mechanism may alter the participation constraints. We investigate this issue by modeling the mechanism design problem as a two-stage process, consisting of a ratification stage followed by the actual play of the chosen game. We develop and illustrate a new concept, ratifiability, that takes account of inferences from a veto in a consistent way.

Futures Contracting And Dividend Uncertainty In Experimental Asset Markets, David P. Porter, Vernon L. Smith

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Prices in experimental asset markets tend to bubble and then crash to dividend value at the end of the asset's useful life. Explanations for this phenomenon are (1) that participants cannot form reliable future price expectations or (2) dividend risk aversion. We report the results of experiments to test these hypotheses. In one experimental series, a futures market is introduced so that participants can obtain information on future share prices. In another series of experiments, the per-period dividend is known with certainty. The futures market treatment had little effect on the character of bubble. The certain dividend treatment had little …