Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Accommodation Or Deterrence In The Face Of Commercial Piracy: The Impact Of Intellectual Property Rights (Ipr) Protections, Yuanzhu Lu, Sougata Poddar

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In this paper, we address the issue of illegal copying or counterfeiting of the original product and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protections. The original product developer makes costly investment to deter piracy in a given regime of IPR protection. In the presence of a commercial pirate, we find that it is profitable for the original producer to accommodate the pirate when there is weak IPR protection, and deter when the IPR protection is strong. However, in the comparative statics analysis, we find that there is a non-monotonic relationship between the optimal level of deterrence (chosen by the original producer) and …

Evidence For A Peak Shift In A Humoral Response To Helminths: Age Profiles Of Ige In The Shuar Of Ecuador, The Tsimane Of Bolivia, And The U.S. Nhanes, Aaron D. Blackwell, Michael D. Gurven, Lawrence S. Sugiyama, Felicia C. Madimenos, Melissa A. Liebert, Melanie A. Martin, Hillard Kaplan, J. Josh Snodgrass

ESI Publications

Background: The peak shift model predicts that the age-profile of a pathogen’s prevalence depends upon its transmission rate, peaking earlier in populations with higher transmission and declining as partial immunity is acquired. Helminth infections are associated with increased immunoglobulin E (IgE), which may convey partial immunity and influence the peak shift. Although studies have noted peak shifts in helminths, corresponding peak shifts in total IgE have not been investigated, nor has the age-patterning been carefully examined across populations. We test for differences in the agepatterning of IgE between two South American forager-horticulturalist populations and the United States: the Tsimane …

Inflammatory Gene Variants In The Tsimane, An Indigenous Bolivian Population With A High Infectious Load, Sarinnapha Vasunilashorn, Caleb E. Finch, Eileen M. Crimmins, Suvi A. Vikman, Jonathan Stieglitz, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Hooman Allayee

ESI Publications

The Tsimane of lowland Bolivia are an indigenous forager-farmer population living under conditions resembling pre-industrial European populations, with high infectious morbidity, high infection and inflammation, and shortened life expectancy. Analysis of 917 persons ages 5 to 60+ showed that allele frequencies of 9 SNPs examined in the apolipoprotein E (apoE), C-reactive protein (CRP), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) genes differed from some European, African, and north Asian-derived populations. The apoE2 allele was absent, whereas four SNPs related to CRP and IL-6 were monomorphic: CRP (rs1800947, rs3093061, and rs3093062) and IL-6 (rs1800795). No significant differences in apoE, CRP, and IL-6 variants across age …

Sectoral Changes And The Increase In Women's Labor Force Participation, Rahşan Akbulut

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, women in the United States decided to move increasingly into the labor market. This paper investigates the growth of the service sector as an explanation for the increase in women's employment. It develops an economic model that can account for the increase in women's employment and the growth of the service sector at the same time. A growth model with two sectors and a home production technology is constructed in order to quantitatively assess the contribution of sectoral productivity differences to the change in women's employment decision. The sectoral productivities are taken …

Father Death And Adult Success Among The Tsimane: Implications For Marriage And Divorce, Jeffrey Winking, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Human fathers are heavily involved in the rearing of children around the world. While there is great cross-cultural variation, the father is a recognizable role in all populations. This deviates from the standard mammalian pattern of little paternal investment. A logical explanation offered early by evolutionary theorists is that human fathers evolved the capacity for paternal concern because human children are remarkably needy and impose a great encumbrance on the mother (Lancaster & Lancaster, 1983; Lovejoy, 1981). Thus, fathers have greater opportunity to enhance the wellbeing of child and mother, as there is a deeper well of need to fill. …

Radio Spectrum And The Disruptive Clarity Of Ronald Coase, Thomas W. Hazlett, David P. Porter, Vernon L. Smith

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In the Federal Communications Commission, Ronald Coase exposed deep foundations via normative argument buttressed by astute historical observation. The government controlled scarce frequencies, issuing sharply limited use rights. Spillovers were said to be otherwise endemic. Coase saw that Government limited conflicts by restricting uses; property owners perform an analogous function via the “price system.” The government solution was inefficient unless the net benefits of the alternative property regime were lower. Coase augured that the price system would outperform. His spectrum auction proposal was mocked by communications policy experts, opposed by industry interests, and ridiculed by policy makers. Hence, it took …

Reading, Writing, And Religion: Institutions And Human Capital Formation, Latika Chaudhary, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In this paper, we empirically test the role that religious and political institutions play in the accumulation of human capital. Using a new data set on literacy in colonial India, we find that Muslim literacy is negatively correlated with the proportion of Muslims in the district, although we find no similar result for Hindu literacy. We employ a theoretical model which suggests that districts which experienced a more recent collapse of Muslim political authority had more powerful and better funded religious authorities, who established religious schools which were less effective at promoting literacy on the margin than state schools. We …

Sweet Diversity: Colonial Goods And The Welfare Gains From Trade After 1492, Jonathan Hersh, Hans-Joachim Voth

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

When did overseas trade start to matter for living standards? Traditional real-wage indices suggest that living standards in Europe stagnated before 1800. In this paper, we argue that welfare rose substantially, but surreptitiously, because of an influx of new goods as a result of overseas trade. Colonial luxuries such as tea, coffee, and sugar transformed European diets after the discovery of America and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. These goods became household items in many countries by the end of the 18th century. We use three different methods to calculate welfare gains based on price data and …

Banking In A Matching Model Of Money And Capital, Valerie R. Bencivenga, Gabriele Camera

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We introduce banks in a model of money and capital with trading frictions. Banks offer demand deposit contracts and hold primary assets to maximize depositors’ utility. If banks’ operating costs are small, banks reallocate liquidity eliminating idle balances and improving the allocation. At moderate costs, idle balances are reduced but not eliminated. At larger costs, banks are redundant. A central bank policy of paying interest on bank reserves can reverse inflation’s distortionary effects, and increase welfare, but only when costs are small. The threshold levels of banks’ costs increase with inflation, suggesting inflation and banks’ utilization are positively associated.

The Welfare Cost Of Inflation In Oecd Countries, P. Boel, Gabriele Camera

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

The welfare cost of anticipated inflation is quantified in a matching model of money calibrated to twenty-three different OECD countries for several sample periods. In most economies, given the common period 1978-1998, a representative agent would give up only a fraction of 1% of consumption to avoid 10% inflation. The welfare cost of inflation varies across countries, from a fraction of 0.1% in Japan, to more than 2% in Australia, reaching 6% with bargaining. The model fits poorly money demand data of several countries, however. The fit generally improves with longer sample periods. The results are fairly robust to variations …

Double Bubbles In Assets Markets With Multiple Generations, Cary Deck, David Porter, Vernon Smith

ESI Working Papers

We construct an asset market in a finite horizon overlapping-generations environment. Subjects are tested for comprehension of their fundamental value exchange environment, and then reminded during each of 25 periods of its declining new value. We observe price bubbles forming when new generations enter the market with additional liquidity and bursting as old generations exit the market and withdrawing cash. The entry and exit of traders in the market creates an M shaped double bubble price path over the life of the traded asset. This finding is significant in documenting that bubbles can reoccur within one extended trading horizon and, …

Transparency, Efficiency And The Distribution Of Economic Welfare In Pass-Through Investment Trust Games, Thomas A. Rietz, Roman M. Sheremeta, Timothy W. Shields, Vernon Smith

ESI Working Papers

We design an experiment to examine welfare and behavior in a multi-level trust game representing a pass through investment in an intermediated market. In a repeated game, an Investor invests via an Intermediary who lends to a Borrower. A pre-experiment one-shot version of the game serves as a baseline and to type each subject. We alter the transparency of exchanges between non-adjacent parties. We find transparency of the exchanges between the investor and intermediary does not significantly affect welfare. However, transparency regarding exchanges between the intermediary and borrower promotes trust on the part of the investor, increasing welfare. Further, this …

Institutions, The Rise Of Commerce And The Persistence Of Laws: Interest Restrictions In Islam And Christianity, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Why was economic development retarded in the Middle East relative to Western Europe, despite the Middle East being far ahead for centuries? A theoretical model inspired and substantiated by the history of interest restrictions suggests that this outcome emanates in part from the greater degree to which early Islamic political authorities derived legitimacy from religious authorities. This entailed a feedback mechanism in Europe in which the rise of commerce led to the relaxation of interest restrictions while also diminishing the Church's ability to legitimise political authorities. These interactions did not occur in the Islamic world despite equally amenable economic conditions.

Don’T Ask Me If You Will Not Listen: The Dilemma Of Participative Decision Making, Brice Corgnet, Roberto Hérnan-Gonzalez

ESI Working Papers

We study the effect of participative decision making in an experimental principalagent game, where the principal can consult the agent’s preferred option regarding the task to be undertaken in the final stage of the game. We show that consulting the agent was beneficial to principals as long as they followed the agent’s choice. Ignoring the agent’s choice was detrimental to the principal as it engendered negative emotions and low levels of transfers. Nevertheless, the majority of principals were reluctant to change their mind and adopt the agent’s proposal. Our results suggest that the ability to change one’s own mind is …

International Comparisons Of Bank Regulation, Liberalization, And Banking Crises, Puspa Amri, Apanard P. Angkinand, Clas Wihlborg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Purpose: The recurrence of banking crises throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and in the more recent 2008-09 global financial crisis, has led to an expanding empirical literature on crisis explanation and prediction. This paper provides an analytical review of proxies for and important determinants of banking crises − credit growth, financial liberalization, bank regulation and supervision.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study surveys the banking crisis literature by comparing proxies for and measures of banking crises and policy-related variables in the literature. Advantages and disadvantages of different proxies are discussed.

Findings: Disagreements about determinants of banking crises are in part …

Responses To The Assurance Game In Monkeys, Apes, And Humans Using Equivalent Procedures, Sarah F. Brosnan, Audrey E. Parrish, Michael J. Beran, Timothy Flemming, Lisa Heimbauer, Catherine F. Talbot, Susan P. Lambeth, Steven J. Schapiro, Bart J. Wilson

ESI Publications

There is great interest in the evolution of economic behavior. In typical studies, species are asked to play one of a series of economic games, derived from game theory, and their responses are compared. The advantage of this approach is the relative level of consistency and control that emerges from the games themselves; however, in the typical experiment, procedures and conditions differ widely, particularly between humans and other species. Thus, in the current study, we investigated how three primate species, capuchin monkeys, chimpanzees, and humans, played the Assurance (or Stag Hunt) game using procedures that were, to the best of …

Strategic Behavior In Schelling Dynamics: A New Result And Experimental Evidence, Juan Miguel Benito, Pablo Brañas-Garza, Penélope Hern´Andez, Juan A. Sanchis

ESI Working Papers

In this paper we experimentally test Schelling’s (1971) segregation model and confirm the striking result of segregation. In addition, we extend Schelling’s model theoretically by adding strategic behavior and moving costs. We obtain a unique subgame perfect equilibrium in which rational agents facing moving costs may find it optimal not to move (anticipating other participants’ movements). This equilibrium is far for full segregation. We run experiments for this extended Schelling model. We find that the percentage of strategic players dramatically increases with the cost of moving and that the degree of segregation depends on the distribution of rational subjects.

Cognitive Effort In The Beauty Contest Game, Pablo Brañas-Garza, Teresa García-Muñoz

ESI Working Papers

This paper analyzes cognitive effort in 6 different one-shot p-beauty games. We use both Raven and Cognitive Reáection tests to identify subjects' abilities. We find that the Raven test does not provide any insight on beauty contest game playing but CRT does: subjects with higher scores on this test are more prone to play dominant strategies.

Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy For A Socialist Society: A Manifesto, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"As advocates of revolutionary critical pedagogy, we stand at the turning point in this process. Critical pedagogy is an approach that we have chosen as a necessary (albeit insufficient) vehicle for transforming the world. The work that we do has been adapted from the pathfinding contributions of the late Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, whose development of pedagogies of the oppressed helped to lay the foundations for approaches (feminist, post-structuralist, Marxist) to teaching and learning that utilizes the life experiences of students in and outside of traditional classrooms to build spaces of dialogue and dialectical thinking. We have renamed our critical …