Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Let Me, Or Let George? Motives Of Competing Altruists, Ted Bergstrom, Rodney Garratt, Greg Leo

Ted C Bergstrom

Sometimes a costly action taken by a single individual is sufficient to benefit an entire group. This should imply technical economies of scale to groups of larger size. But in a group of selfishly motivated agents, a countervailing force, the free-rider problem, may actually reduce the likelihood of provision as group size increases. Yet there are con- spicuous real-world cases where, in seeming defiance of the free-rider problem, a small minority provides a public good that benefits a large population. Examples include unpaid contributions to Wikipedia, Linux, and the bone-marrow registry. We suggest that these successful outcomes occur because a …

Co-Ordinated Volunteers' Dilemmas, Ted C. Bergstrom, Greg Leo

Ted C Bergstrom

Saving Lives With Stem Cell Transplants, Damien Sheehan-Connor, Ted C. Bergstrom, Rodney Garratt

Ted C Bergstrom

Blood stem cell transplants can be life-saving for some patients, but the chances of finding a matching donor are small unless a large number of potential donors are evaluated. Many nations maintain large registries of potential donors who have offered to donate stem cells if they are the best available match for a patient needing a transplant. An alternative source of stem cells, umbilical cord blood, is stored in banks. Everyone faces a small probability of needing a transplant which will increase their likelihood of survival. The registries and cord blood banks are thus an interesting example of a pure …

Cost Effectiveness Of Open Access Publications, Jevin D. West, Ted C. Bergstrom, Carl T. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

Open access publishing has been proposed as one possible solution to the serials crisis—the rapidly growing subscription prices in scholarly journal publishing. However, open access publishing can present economic pitfalls as well, such as excessive article processing charges. We discuss the decision that an author faces when choosing to submit to an open access journal. We develop an interactive tool to help authors compare among alternative open access venues and thereby get the most for their article processing charges. (JEL I2, C1, A1)

Evaluating Big Deal Journal Bundles, Ted Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

Large commercial publishers sell bundled online subscriptions to their entire list of academic journals at prices significantly lower than the sum of their á la carte prices. Bundle prices differ drastically between institutions, but they are not publicly posted. The data that we have collected enable us to compare the bundle prices charged by commercial publishers with those of nonprofit societies and to examine the types of price discrimination practiced by commercial and nonprofit journal publishers. This information is of interest to economists who study monopolist pricing, librarians interested in making efficient use of library budgets, and scholars who are …

Saving Lives With Stem Cell Transplants, Damien Sheehan-Connor, Ted Bergstrom, Rodney Garratt

Ted C Bergstrom

For patients with certain diseases, blood stem cell transplants can be life-saving. But a transplant is likely to be successful only if the immune systems of the donor and recipient are a close genetic match. Human immune systems are extremely diverse and a patient's chances of finding a matching donor would be small without the ability to search a very large number of possible donors. For this reason, most advanced nations maintain large registries of potential donors who have offered to donate stem cells if they happen to be the best available match for a patient needing a transplant. In …

On The Evolution Of Hoarding, Risk-Taking, And Wealth Distribution In Nonhuman And Human Populations, Ted C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

This paper applies the theory of the evolution of risk-taking in the presence of idiosyncratic and environmental risks to the example of food hoarding by animals and explores implications of the resulting theory for human attitudes toward risk.

Measures Of Assortativity, Ted Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

This paper discusses alternative measures of assortative matching and relates them to Sewall Wright's F-statistic. We also explore applications of measures of assortativity to evolutionary dynamics. We generalize Wright's statistic to allow the possibility that some types match more assortatively than others, and explore the possibility of identifying parameters of this more general model from the observed distribution of matches by the partners' types.

Cost-Effectiveness Of Open Access Publications, Jevin D. West, Ted C. Bergstrom, Carl T. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

Open access publishing has been proposed as one possible solution to the serials crisis | the rapidly growing subscription prices in scholarly journal publishing. However, open access publishing can present economic pitfalls as well, such as excessive article processing charges. We discuss the decision that an author faces when choosing to submit to an open access journal. We develop an interactive tool to help authors compare among alternative open access venues and thereby get the most for their article processing charges.

The Good Samaritan And Traffic On The Road To Jericho, Ted C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

Models Of Assortative Matching, Ted Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

This paper explores the theory and statistical identification of two distinct models of assortative matching. One model corresponds closely to Sewall Wright's F-statistic, also known as the coefficient of inbreeding, or index of assortativity. A second model is based on random encounters in which individuals are more likely to match on an encounter with their own type than with the other.

Review Of Robert Frank's Darwin Economy, Ted C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

This is a short book review of Frank's ``Darwin Economy''.

Librarians And The Terrible Fix: Economics Of The Big Deal, Ted C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

The academic journal market is characterized by delegated purchasing, unreliable signals of demand, and a complex, difficult-to-evaluate product. As a result, the demand for journals is highly inelastic to prices. Large commercial publishers have capitalized on this inelastic demand, by reducing competition through mergers and consolidations, by offering Big Deal bundled contracts, and raising their prices to levels far above average cost. We suggest that the demand for access to journal articles would be much more price elastic and the overall cost to the academic community would be lower if universities were to abstain from purchasing bundled site licenses at …

Big Macs And Eigenfactor Scores: Don't Let The Correlation Coefficients Fool You, Jevin D. West, Carl T. Bergstrom, Theodore C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

A recent article by Phil Davis suggested that the Eigenvalue metric does adds little useful information to the more simply calculated measure of total citations published by the ISI. This paper argues that Davis's claim is an instance of a classic statistical fallacy of spurious correlation. Based on an analysis of the entire 2006 ISI Journal Citation Reports, we show that there are statistically and economically significant differences between the Eigenfactor metrics and the ISI's impact factor and total citations.

The Uncommon Insight Of Elinor Ostrom, Ted C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

Abstract Standard economic approaches to the problem of overuse of common property resources have emphasized two competing remedies, the Pigovian approach of corrective taxation and the property rights approach of internalizing externalities by means of assigning marketable property rights to individual owners with exclusive claim on the entire commons. Elinor Ostrom pursues a third approach, which is based on case studies of existing communities that have established successful and durable systems of managing common property resources. This paper discusses her work and suggests that economists with an interest in public policy have much to gain from becoming familiar with the …

A Public Choice Framework For Controlling Transmissable And Evolving Diseases, Benjamin Althouse, Ted Bergstrom, Carl Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

No abstract provided.

Stem Cell Matching For Patients Of Mixed Race, Ted C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

Patients with leukemia and other blood diseases stand a good chance of recovery and a return to normal life if they receive a stem cell transplant from a living donor. In the absence of a transplant, their survival prospects are grim. For a transplant to be successful, the human leukocyte antigens (HLA) of the donor and recipient must be a close genetic match. To facilitate non-sibling matches, the developed nations of the world have set up national volunteer registries. The larges such registry is the NMDP (National Marrow Donor Program). We estimate the distribution of HLA types for individuals of …

One Chance In A Million: Altruism And The Bone Marrow Registry, Ted Bergstrom, Rod Garratt, Damien Sheehan-Connor

Ted C Bergstrom

Transplants of donated stem cells save the lives of many patients with blood diseases. Donation is somewhat painful, butrarely has lasting adverse effects. Patients can accept transplants only from donors with compatible immune systems. Those lacking a sibling match must seek donations from the population at large. The probability that two persons of the same race are compatible is less than 1/10,000. Health authorities maintain a registry of several million genetically-tested potential donors who have agreed to donate if asked. We study the peculiar structure of voluntary public good provision represented by the registry, and compare the marginal benefits and …

Ethics, Evolution, And Games Among Neighbors, Ted C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

Several similar maxims, known as "Golden Rules" are found in the writings of moral philosophers and religious teachers. Though similar, these maxims appeal to di#11;fferent principles; and do not always recommend the same actions nor lead to the same equilibrium outcome in interactive games. This paper examines some of these rules and explores the way that they may emerge as a result of biological or social evolution.

A Public Choice Framework For Controlling Transmissable And Evolving Diseases, Ted C. Bergstrom, Carl T. Bergstrom, Ben Althouse

Ted C Bergstrom

Control measures used to limit the spread of infectious disease often generate externalities. Vaccination for transmissible diseases can re- duce the incidence of disease even among the unvaccinated, whereas antimicrobial chemotherapy can lead to the evolution of antimicro- bial resistance and thereby limit its own e#11;ectiveness over time. We integrate the economic theory of public choice with mathematical models of infectious disease to provide quantitative framework for making allocation decisions in the presence of these externalities. To illustrate, we present a series of examples: vaccination for tetanus, vaccination for measles, antibiotic treatment of otitis media, and antiviral treatment of pandemic …

Differences In Impact Factor Across Fields And Over Time, Benjamin M. Althouse, Jevin D. West, Ted C. Bergstrom, Carl T. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

The impact factor of an academic journal for any year is the number of times the average article published in that journal in the previous two years are cited in that year. From 1994-2005, the average impact factor of journals listed by the ISI has been increasing by an average of 2.6 percent per year. This paper documents this growth and explores its causes.

Solving The Beautiful Mind Coordination Problem, Ted C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

There are n boys and m girls. The boys are all expected utility maximizers and agree about the desirability of the prospect of dating each girl. Boys assign utility v_i to a date with girl i, where v_1>v_2>\dots v_n>0 and a utility of 0to having no date. Girls don't care which boy they go out with and they prefer having a date to not having a date. We find the Nash equilibrium strategy for boys.

Teaching Economics Interactively: A Cannibal's Dinner Party, Ted Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

This paper describes techniques that I use to teach economics principles "interactively". These techniques include classroom experiments and classroom clickers. The paper describes an experiment on market entry and gives examples of applications of classroom clickers. Clicker applications include the collection data about student preferences that can be used to construct demand curves and supply curves. Check on students' knowledge of central concepts. Play interactive games that illustrate economic concepts.

How Often Do Economists Self-Archive?, Ted Bergstrom, Rosemarie Lavaty

Ted C Bergstrom

To answer the question of the paper's title, we looked at the tables of contents from two recent issues of 33 economics journals and attempted to find a freely available online version of each article. We found that about 90 percent of articles in the most-cited economics journals and about 50 percent of articles in less-cited journals are available. We conduct a similar exercise for political science and find that only about 30 percent of the articles are freely available. The paper reports a regression analysis of the effects of author and article characteristics on likelihood of posing and it …

Rationality And Personality In A Restaurant Entry Game: Is There An Entrepreneurial Personality Type?, Ted Bergstrom, Jon Sonstelie

Ted C Bergstrom

Students in a large principles class participated in a market experiment in which they had opportunities to take entrepreneurial action. These students had also taken the Meyers-Briggs personality test. We explore the relation between personality characteristics and participation decisions.

Natural Kantian Or Zoo Economicus? Evolutionary Theories Of Selfishness And Altruism Among Men And Beasts, Ted C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

This paper addresses the question of whether our evolutionary history suggests that humans are likely to be individually selected selfish maximizers or group selected altruists. It surveys models from the literature of evolutionary biology in which groups are formed and dissolved and where the reproductive success of individuals is determined by their payoffs in a game played within groups. We show that if groups are formed randomly and reproductive success of group founders is determined by a multi-person prisoners’ dilemma game, then selfish behavior will prevail over maximization of group payoffs. However, interesting models can be found for which “group …

Experimental Markets And Chamberlin's Excess Trading Conjecture, Ted Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

Edward Chamberlin conjectured that the number of trades in realistic trading systems is likely to exceed that predicted by competitive equilibrium theory. He supported this conjecture by data from a large number of classroom experiments and with a plausible argument based on a numerical example. This paper states and proves a theorem that supports and illuminates Chamberlin's intuition, supplies examples of trading processes that lead to excess trading, and presents some additional experimental evidence.

The Costs And Benefits Of Library Site Licenses To Academic Journals, Ted Bergstrom, Carl Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

Scientific publishing is rapidly shifting from a paper-based system to one of predominantly electronic distribution, in which universities purchase site licenses for online access to journal contents. Will these changes necessarily benefit the scientific community? By using basic microeconomics and elementary statistical theory, we address this question and find a surprising answer. If a journal is priced to maximize the publisher s profits, scholars on average are likely to be worse off when universities purchase site licenses than they would be if access were by individual subscriptions only. However, site licenses are not always disadvantageous. Journals issued by professional societies …

When Non-Transitive Relations Take Maxima And Competitive Equilibria Can't Be Beat, Ted Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

The paper generalizes theorems of Ky Fan and Hugo Sonnenschein on the existence of maximal elements for non-transitive relations. I used these results to show that a binary relation could be constructed whose maximal element must be a competitive equilibrium. Thus proving the existence of competitive equilibrium under somewhat more general conditions than had been done previously. In 1975, I thought this was a useful extension of the Gale Mas Collel existence theorem. Journal referees then didn't agree with me, so I let it ripen in my desk for 15 years. I still think it is worth looking at if …

Vernon Smith's Insomnia And The Dawn Of Economics As Experimental Science, Ted Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

A retrospective on Vernon Smith's contributions to experimental economics, written for the Scandinavian Journal of Economics.