Economic Theory Commons^™

A Taxonomy Of Non-Dictatorial Unidimensional Domains, Shurojit Chatterji, Huaxia Zeng

Research Collection School Of Economics

Non-dictatorial preference domains allow the design of unanimous social choice functions (henceforth, rules) that are non-dictatorial and strategy-proof. On a class of preference domains called unidimensional domains, we show that the unique seconds property characterizes all non-dictatorial domains. Subsequently, we provide an exhaustive classification of all non-dictatorial, unidimensional domains, based on a simple property of two-voter rules called invariance. The domains constituting the classification are semi-single-peaked domains and semi-hybrid domains (introduced here) which are two appropriate weakenings of single-peaked domains and shown to allow strategy-proof rules to depend on non-peak information of voters' preferences; the canonical strategy-proof rules for these …

Decentralizability Of Efficient Allocations With Heterogenous Forecasts, Shurojit Chatterji, Atsushi Kajii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Do price forecasts of rational economic agents need to coincide in perfectly competitive complete markets? To address this question, we define an efficient temporary equilibrium (ETE) within the framework of a two period economy. Although an ETE allocation is intertemporally efficient and is obtained by perfect competition, it can arise without the agents forecasts being completely coordinated on a perfect foresight price. Nevertheless, it entails price forecasts delicately related with each other: we show that regardless of the number of agents, there is a one dimensional set of such Pareto efficient allocations for generic endowments.

A Philosophical And Empirical Investigation Into Buddhist Economics, Hannah Doyle

CMC Senior Theses

There is a growing body of literature on Buddhist economics from a philosophical perspective; however, no work to date has sought to empirically validate it as an effective economic theory at a global scale. In my paper, I draw on the long history of Buddhist metaphysics to construct an account of Buddhist ethics and then proceed to derive a set of Buddhist economic principles. I draw on the World Happiness Report’s methodology to quantitatively demonstrate the relationship between Buddhist economic principles and the psychological wellbeing of a country’s citizens, as measured through their own evaluation of their quality of life …

Unwilling Gamblers And Loaded Dice: Considering Recession And Crisis As A Natural Effect Of Financial Capitalism, Darlene N. Moorman

The Downtown Review

Under financial capitalism, ordinary people are increasingly becoming 'unwilling gamblers' of a risky and unstable system. This paper explores the social and institutional change behind the neoliberal movement and considers how the politics and policies of neoliberalism have contributed to a certain environment of financial instability. Looking at the changing nature of the economy, the rapid expansion of the financial sector, and the persisting issue of moral hazard underlying risky and speculative behaviors among other items, reveals a financial system in which recessions and crises can be considered a natural, although not inevitable, effect.

Working Paper No. 63, On Karl Polanyi And His Conception Of Fascism, Serene Mistkawi

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that the writings of author Karl Polanyi offered insights into key variables and historical conditions that gave rise to the system we know of as “fascism.” Integral to his insights, Polanyi describes economic conditions attendant for fascism to emerge, with one condition noted as widespread and persistent unemployment. Polanyi stresses that fascism needs to be understood as reactionary, a responding to features integral to classical liberalism. Considering a broad historical context Polanyi teaches us of the political conditions necessary for fascism to emerge and take form as political movements wielding power. He considers conflicts in …

Optimal Patent Licensing—Two Or Three-Part Tariff, Swapnendu Banerjee, Arijit Mukherjee, Sougata Poddar

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We look into technology transfer by an insider patentee in a spatial duopoly model under three types of licensing contracts—(i) two-part tariff with fixed fee and per-unit royalty, (ii) two-part tariff with fixed fee and ad-valorem royalty and (iii) general three-part tariff with fixed fee, per-unit and ad-valorem royalties. Under two-part tariff contracts, the licenser is better off with the per-unit royalty contract but the general contract does better than the other contracts. In contrast to the existing literature, all three licensing contracts may make the consumers worse-off compared to no licensing, with the lowest consumer surplus achieved under the …

Predictive Mind Reading From First And Second Impressions: Better-Than-Chance Prediction Of Cooperative Behavior, Eric Schniter, Timothy W. Shields

ESI Working Papers

People’s appearance and behaviors in strategic interactions provide a variety of informative clues that can help people accurately predict beliefs, intentions, and future behaviors. Mind reading mechanisms may have been selected for that allow for better-than-chance prediction of others’ strategic social propensities based on the sparse information available when forming first and second impressions. We hypothesize that first impressions are based on prior beliefs and available information gleaned from another’s description and appearance. For example, where another’s gender is identified, prior gender stereotypes could influence expectations and correct guesses about them. We also hypothesize that mind reading mechanisms use second …

Voting Rules And Properties, Zhuorong Mao

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis composes of two chapters. Chapter one considers the higher order of Borda Rules (Bp) and the Perron Rule (P) as extensions of the classic Borda Rule. We study the properties of those vector-valued voting rules and compare them with Simple Majority Voting (SMV). Using simulation, we found that SMV can yield different results from B1, B2, and P even when it is transitive. We also give a new condition that forces SMV to be transitive, and then quantify the frequency of transitivity when it fails.

In chapter two, we study the `protocol paradox' of approval voting. In approval …

A Welfare Comparison Of Historical Cost And Fair Value Accounting Regimes, Palmer Edholm

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

With ongoing controversy concerning fair value and historical cost accounting, existing accounting theory is focused on intra-firm decision making and is thus deficient in addressing the issue of maximizing social welfare. I propose models of historical cost and fair value accounting regimes which are embedded in models of monopoly and oligopoly. This allows for social welfare implications. I find that historical cost results in greater expected profits for both monopolists and oligopolists. However, if the market is elastic enough, a fair value regimes is welfare enhancing. Whereas, if the market is inelastic enough, historical cost is welfare enhancing.

Contingent Payments In Procurement Interactions - Experimental Evidence, Matthew J. Walker, Jason Shachat, Lijia Wei

ESI Working Papers

A chief objective of creating competition among suppliers is the procurement of higher quality goods at lower prices. When procuring non-standard goods, it is often difficult to write a complete specification of desired quality in the contract. A moral hazard arises when this quality is costly and determined by the supplier ex post to contracting. In an effort to mitigate this moral hazard, we introduce a correlated contingent payment contract. This contract is awarded through competitive bidding. The winning supplier’s payment is, according to a fixed probability, either the amount of their bid or a quality contingent amount that depends …

The Penn Effect And Marx's International Law Of Value: A Review Of Value And Unequal Exchange By Andrea Ricci, Giuseppe Quattromini

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Placing itself in the revival of interest in unequal exchange, Ricci's book claims the need to give the theory a new conceptual foundation to justify recent proposals to estimate unequal exchange on the basis of the so-called Penn effect. In order to do that, Ricci identifies Marx's international law of value as a fitting theoretical framework and hence develops a radically innovative theory of global capitalist exploitation through international trade. Finally, he assesses the magnitude of unequal exchange over the past three decades by producing estimates based on the proposed approach.

Maskin Meets Abreu And Matsushima, Yi-Chun Chen, Takashi Kunimoto, Yifei Sun, Siyang Xiong

Research Collection School Of Economics

The theory of full implementation has been criticized for using integer/modulo games, which admit no equilibrium (Jackson (1992)). To address the critique, we revisit the classical Nash implementation problem due to Maskin (1977, 1999) but allow for the use of lotteries and monetary transfers as in Abreu and Matsushima (1992, 1994). We unify the two well-established but somewhat orthogonal approaches in full implementation theory. We show that Maskin monotonicity is a necessary and sufficient condition for (exact) mixed-strategy Nash implementation by a finite mechanism. In contrast to previous papers, our approach possesses the following features: finite mechanisms (with no integer …

Litigation With Negative Expected Value Suits: An Experimental Analysis, Cary Deck, Paul Pecorino, Michael Solomon

ESI Working Papers

The existence of lawsuits providing plaintiffs a negative expected value (NEV) at trial has important theoretical implications for signaling models of litigation. The signaling equilibrium possible absent NEV suits breaks down with NEV suits because plaintiffs do not have a credible threat to proceed to trial undermining the ability to signal type. Using a laboratory experiment, we analyze behavior with and without the possibility of NEV suits. Absent NEV suits, behavior largely follows predicted patterns. However, the possibility of NEV suits does not cause the signaling equilibrium to unravel and does not cause the dispute rate to increase. Plaintiffs only …

Inequality As A Barrier To Economic Integration? An Experiment, Gabriele Camera, Lukas Hohl, Rolf Weder

ESI Working Papers

International economic theory suggests that people should embrace economic integration because it promises large gains. But policy reversals such as Brexit indicate a desire for economic disintegration. Here we report results of an experiment of how size and cross-country distribution of gains from integration influence individuals’ inclination to cooperate to reap its intended benefits and to embrace or reject integration. The design considers an indefinitely repeated helping game with multiple equilibria and strategic uncertainty. The data reveal that inequality of potential gains neither affected behavior nor reduced support for economic integration. However, integration may lead to disappointing, unequally distributed welfare …

Cnn-Lstm Vs Ann: Option Pricing Theory, Edward Chang

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The modern derivatives market has been steadily growing since the development of the first accurate option pricing model by Fischer Black, Robert Merton, and Myron Scholes. Since then, there have been many different approaches to more accurately price options like the binomial option pricing model and approaches using technology such as machine learning. There are many different research papers on option pricing with artificial neural networks (“ANN”) but not many with other neural network types. We contribute to the existing literature by developing a convolutional neural network – long short-term memory (“CNN-LSTM”) model to price options and compare it to …

The Personality And Cognitive Traits Associated With Adolescents’ Sensitivity To Social Norms, Christopher Tate, Rajnish Kumar, Jennifer M. Murray, Sharon Sanchez-Franco, Olga L. Sarmiento, Shannon C. Montgomery, Huiyu Zhou, Abhijit Ramalingam, Erin Krupka, Erik Kimbrough, Frank Kee, Ruth F. Hunter

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Little is known about the personality and cognitive traits that shape adolescents’ sensitivity to social norms. Further, few studies have harnessed novel empirical tools to elicit sensitivity to social norms among adolescent populations. This paper examines the association between sensitivity to norms and various personality and cognitive traits using an incentivised rule-following task grounded in Game Theory. Cross-sectional data were obtained from 1274 adolescents. Self-administered questionnaires were used to measure personality traits as well as other psychosocial characteristics. Incentivised rule-following experiments gauged sensitivity to social norms. A series of multilevel mixed effects ordered logistic regression models were employed to assess …

Plato’S Market Optimism, Brennan Mcdavid

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

Despite the extensiveness of top-down control in his ideal city, Plato takes seriously the idea that the market does not require total regulation via legislation and that participants in the market may be capable of self-regulation. This paper examines the discussion of market regulation in the Republic and argues that the philosopher rulers play a very limited role in regulating market activities. Indeed, they are concerned only with averting excesses of wealth and poverty. The rules and regulations that are foundational to the daily functioning of the market – enforcement of contracts, resolution of disputes, etc. – are endogenous to …

Information Aggregation With Heterogeneous Traders, Cary Deck, Tae In Jun, Laura Razzolini, Tavoy Reid

ESI Working Papers

The efficient market hypothesis predicts that asset prices reflect all available information. A seminal experiment reported that contingent claim markets could yield market outcomes consistent with information aggregation when traders hold heterogeneous state-contingent values. However, a recent experiment found the rational expectation model outperformed the prior information and maxi-min models in contingent claim markets when traders hold homogeneous values despite the no trade equilibrium in that setting. But that same study failed to replicate the original result calling into question when, if ever, prices reliably reflect the aggregate information of traders with heterogeneous values. In this paper, we show contingent …

United We Stand: On The Benefits Of Coordinated Punishment, Vicente Calabuig, Natalia Jiménez, Gonzalo Olcina, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara

ESI Working Papers

Coordinated punishment occurs when punishment decisions are complements; i.e., this punishment device requires a specific number of punishers to be effective; otherwise, no damage will be inflicted on the target. While societies often rely on this punishment device, its benefits are unclear compared with uncoordinated punishment, where punishment decisions are substitutes. We argue that coordinated punishment can prevent the free-riding of punishers and show, both theoretically and experimentally, that this may be beneficial for cooperation in a team investment game, compared with uncoordinated punishment.

Historical Political Economy: What Is It?, Jeffrey Jenkins, Jared Rubin

ESI Working Papers

In this chapter, we define what historical political economy (HPE) is and is not, classify the major themes in the literature, assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of the literature, and point to future directions. We view HPE as social scientific inquiry which highlights political causes or consequences of historical issues. HPE is different from conventional political economy in the emphasis placed on historical processes and context. While we view HPE in the most inclusive manner reasonable, we define it to exclude works that are either solely of contemporary importance or use historical data without any historical context (e.g., long-run …