Public Economics Commons^™

Three Essays On Uncertainty In Social Dilemmas, Abdul Kidwai

Doctoral Dissertations

Social dilemmas are settings where the interest of the individual is at odds with those of society i.e. overharvesting in a fishery, not contributing to a public good. These dilemmas are widespread and take myriad forms with public goods and common-pool resources being the most prominent ones. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how individual behavior is impacted by the presence of uncertainty in public goods and common-pool resources. These dilemmas exhibit two types of uncertainty, strategic and environmental. Strategic uncertainty refers to uncertainty about the actions of other individuals facing the dilemma i.e. will other individuals contribute …

Theory And Experiments Exploring Behavioral, Financial, And Public Economics, Matthew John Mcmahon

Doctoral Dissertations

I study three questions which relate to one another only in that each explores facets of economics. First, I theoretically examine the conditions under which introducing an impure public good decreases total public provision. I introduce a central planner who can tax the private good to correct this and identify the market characteristics that typify this scenario. Second, I test the two standard competing dividend puzzle hypotheses using a laboratory experiment. Evidence from the lab, including variables unobservable in the field, reinforces empirical work supporting the outcome model over the substitute. Last, I obscure from dictators information regarding recipients' income …

Exploring The Heterogeneity Of Other-Regarding Preferences, Langchuan Peng

Doctoral Dissertations

This project studies the impact of heterogeneous other-regarding preferences on many issues, such as taxation, government revenue and income inequality. The first two chapters build upon the literature of relative income effects pioneered by Duesenberry (1949). This hypothesis says that the utility of an individual depends on not only his absolute income level, but also his relative income position. An individual gains utility if his income exceeds the income of most members in his comparison group and loses utility if his income falls below the income of most members in the group. Most previous studies consider either a symmetric or …

Essays On Forward Trading, Environmental Quality And Investor Behavior, And The Wta-Wtp Disparity, Jens Schubert

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays that study (i) collusion in forward markets, (ii) investor behavior in response to ecological disasters, and (iii) the willingness to accept - willingness to pay disparity in the presence of uncertainty.

Chapter 1 reports the results of a laboratory experiment that examines the strategic effect of forward contracts on market power in infinitely repeated duopolies. Two competing effects motivate the experimental design. Allaz and Vila (1993) argue that forward markets act like additional competitors in that they increase quantity competition among firms. Conversely, Liski and Montero (2006) argue that forward contracting can facilitate collusive …