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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

A Unified Approach To Comparative Statics Puzzles In Experiments, Armin Schmutzler Jan 2011

A Unified Approach To Comparative Statics Puzzles In Experiments, Armin Schmutzler

Armin Schmutzler

The paper shows that several game-theoretic solution concepts provide similar comparative statics predictions over a wide class of games. I start from the observation that, in many experiments, behavior is affected by parameter shifts that leave the Nash equilibrium unchanged. I explain the direction of change with a heuristic structural approach, using properties such as strategic complementarities and increasing differences. I show that the approach is consistent with general comparative statics results for (i) the Nash equilibrium of a game with perturbed payoff functions, (ii) the quantal response equilibrium, (iii) level-k reasoning. I also relate the structural approach to equilibrium …


Reconstruction Of Concept Of Paradigm In Thomas S. Kuhn, Fernando Estrada Mar 2010

Reconstruction Of Concept Of Paradigm In Thomas S. Kuhn, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

This article aims to discuss an evaluation of the concept of paradigm of T. Kuhn in his representative work: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ERC, [Ku96] and the complementary version by W. Stegmüller, Structure and dynamics of theories EDT, [Steg83]. This refined interpretation of the concept of paradigm allows for a more complete set of central Kuhnian concept.


Antinomies Of Capitalism (Review Of Globalization Its Discontents Joseph Stiglitz, Fernando Estrada Feb 2010

Antinomies Of Capitalism (Review Of Globalization Its Discontents Joseph Stiglitz, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

We present the central arguments of the critics on the limits and scope of globalization on the work


The Leviathan Of Thomas Hobbes, Fernando Estrada Feb 2010

The Leviathan Of Thomas Hobbes, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

This interpretation of the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes line of work includes a project from Concept of the Political by Carl Schmitt. It offers a reading from modern political theory as opposed to rational version of the book of Hobbes. The Leviathan from mythological nature preserves from the Biblical and Talmudic tradition, which opens an understanding of the modern State from the medieval stories. Hobbes is one of the first theorists that paves the way for liberalism, but disputed that his work reflects not strictly liberal thought, but the problems of political power during the Monarchies


The Effects Of Labour Market Performance On Financial System Stability, Tomasz Daras, Joanna Tyrowicz Jan 2010

The Effects Of Labour Market Performance On Financial System Stability, Tomasz Daras, Joanna Tyrowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

Crisis may spread through economy via the propagating mechanisms of the labour market - households becoming delinquent due to initial unemployment shock may be unable to continue servicing obligations versus the financial system. With large volume debts - e.g. mortgages - such defaults pose a threat to financial system stability. In this paper we use the Polish household budgets survey to simulate the impact of changes in the labour market status of household members on the ability of the household to service its mortgage payments. The simulation results are subsequently aggregated to facilitate macro-level interpretation of the findings. We simulate …


Do We Really Need To Start From Scratch?, Michal Gradzewicz, Krzysztof Makarski, Joanna Tyrowicz Jan 2010

Do We Really Need To Start From Scratch?, Michal Gradzewicz, Krzysztof Makarski, Joanna Tyrowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper presents views and believes of the authors on the relevance of the current economic theory for the understanding of the complex world we live in. Has the crisis indeed demonstrated that as profession we are misled by the beauty of the mathematical models and the only useful, workable solutions at hand were provided in early 1930s? The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the current state-of-the-art literature from the perspective of its usefulness in the context of economic crises. We argue that although we might be unable to answer many questions or to “predict” …


The Coasean Analysis Of Harmful Interactions: Some Conceptual Difficulties, Satish K. Jain Jan 2010

The Coasean Analysis Of Harmful Interactions: Some Conceptual Difficulties, Satish K. Jain

Satish K. Jain

This paper is concerned with two distinct issues flowing from Coase's analysis of harmful interactions and of how courts deal with them. The first issue relates to the domain of validity of the Coase Theorem. It is argued in the paper that if non-pecuniary considerations are brought into the analysis then it can no longer be claimed that the outcome will be efficient regardless of liability assignments. In other words, it is contended in the paper that the validity of the Coase Theorem is crucially dependent on neglect of non-pecuniary considerations from the analysis. From this it follows that if …


Paul A. Samuelson (1915 - 2009): Memories Of Friedrich Von Hayek (1899 - 1992) Spanish Translation: Fernando Estrada And Andrea Trujillo, Fernando Estrada Jan 2010

Paul A. Samuelson (1915 - 2009): Memories Of Friedrich Von Hayek (1899 - 1992) Spanish Translation: Fernando Estrada And Andrea Trujillo, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

In this report Professor Samuelson staff prepares a tour of the work and thought of highlighting the contributions of Hayek Austrian economist and showing the world within which they took power broadly two contradictory paradigms of economic thought. This testimony intellectual frontline is extraordinary, given the recent death of Professor Samuelson


Financial Theory Has A Paradigm A La Kuhn?, Fernando Estrada Jan 2010

Financial Theory Has A Paradigm A La Kuhn?, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

This article aims to discuss two issues relatively linked. The first is an evaluation of the concept of paradigm of T. Kuhn in his representative work: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ERC, [Ku96] and the complementary version by W. Stegmüller, Structure and dynamics of theories EDT, [Steg83]. This refined interpretation of the concept of paradigm allows for a more complete set of central Kuhnian concept. The second objective is to analyze the scope of the Kuhnian concept of models to evaluate financial explanation. Is explored preliminarily proposed fractal models / multifractal (F / M) of Mandelbrot [Mand97, 82, 02, 05]. …


Monopolistic Screening Under Learning By Doing, Dennis L. Gärtner Jan 2010

Monopolistic Screening Under Learning By Doing, Dennis L. Gärtner

Dennis L Gärtner

This article investigates the design of incentives in a dynamic adverse selection framework where agents’ production technologies display learning effects and agents’ learning rates are private knowledge. In a simple two-period model with full commitment available to the principal, we show that whether learning effects are over- or underexploited crucially depends on whether more efficient agents also learn faster (so costs diverge through learning effects) or whether it is the less efficient agents who learn faster (so costs converge). We further show that an overexploitation of learning effects can occur also if the full-commitment assumption is relaxed.


Merger Negotiations And Ex Post Regret, Dennis Gärtner, Armin Schmutzler Jul 2009

Merger Negotiations And Ex Post Regret, Dennis Gärtner, Armin Schmutzler

Dennis L Gärtner

We consider a setting in which two potential merger partners each possess private information pertaining both to the profitability of the merged entity and to stand-alone profits, and investigate the extent to which this private information makes ex-post regret an unavoidable phenomenon in merger negotiations. To this end, we consider ex-post mechanisms, which use both players’ reports to determine whether or not a merger will take place and what each player will earn in each case. When the outside option of at least one player is known, the efficient merger decision can be implemented by such a mechanism under plausible …


Merger Negotiations And Ex Post Regret, Dennis Gärtner, Armin Schmutzler Jun 2009

Merger Negotiations And Ex Post Regret, Dennis Gärtner, Armin Schmutzler

Armin Schmutzler

We consider a setting in which two potential merger partners each possess private information pertaining both to the profitability of the merged entity and to stand-alone profits, and we investigate the extent to which this private information makes ex-post regret an unavoidable phenomenon in merger negotiations. To this end, we consider ex-post mechanisms, which use both players’ reports to determine whether or not a merger will take place and what each player will earn in each case. When the outside option of at least one player is known, the efficient merger decision can be implemented by such a mechanism under …


Exogenous Coalition Formation In The E-Marketplace Based On Geographical Proximity, Tomasz Michalak, Joanna Tyrowicz, Peter Mcburney, Michael Wooldridge Jan 2009

Exogenous Coalition Formation In The E-Marketplace Based On Geographical Proximity, Tomasz Michalak, Joanna Tyrowicz, Peter Mcburney, Michael Wooldridge

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper considers a model for exogenous coalition formation in e-marketplaces. Using its informational advantage, an e-retailer creates coalitions of customers based on geographical proximity. Most of the literature regards this process as endogenous: a coalition leader among the buyers bundles eventual purchases together in order to obtain a better bargaining position. In contrast – and in response to what is typically observed in business practice – we analyse a situation in which an existing e-retailer exogenously forms customers’ coalitions. Results of this study are highly encouraging. Namely, we demonstrate that even under highly imperfect warehouse management schemes leading to …


Simple Economies With Multiple Equilibria, Ted C. Bergstrom, Ken-Ichi Shimomura, Takehiko Yamato Jan 2009

Simple Economies With Multiple Equilibria, Ted C. Bergstrom, Ken-Ichi Shimomura, Takehiko Yamato

Ted C Bergstrom

This paper studies a general class of pure exchange economies that have multiple equilibria, which extend an example presented by Lloyd Shapley and Martin Shubik. For such economies, we find easily verified conditions that determine whether there are multiple equilibria. We also provide simple methods for constructing economies in which arbitrary pre-specified sets of prices are equilibria. These economies have simple comparative statics, since prices at interior competitive equilibrium depend on the parameters of utility but not on the endowment quantities.


All-Pay Auctions With Negative Prize Externalities: Theory And Experimental Evidence, Armin Schmutzler, Dario Sacco Jan 2008

All-Pay Auctions With Negative Prize Externalities: Theory And Experimental Evidence, Armin Schmutzler, Dario Sacco

Armin Schmutzler

The paper characterizes the mixed-strategy equilibria in all-pay auctions with endogenous prizes that depend positively on own effort and negatively on the effort of competitors. Such auctions arise naturally in the context of investment games, lobbying games, and promotion tournaments. We also provide an experimental analysis of a special case which captures the strategic situation of a two-stage game with investment preceding homogenous Bertrand competition. We obtain overinvestment both relative to the mixed-strategy equilibrium and the social optimum.


Civil War And Political Contractualism Incomplete (Guerra Civil Y Contractualismo Político Incompleto) Spanish, Fernando Estrada Jan 2008

Civil War And Political Contractualism Incomplete (Guerra Civil Y Contractualismo Político Incompleto) Spanish, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

This chapter presents an interpretation of armed conflict in Colombia since reading "negative" of the Coase theorem. The relations of the civil war with limited conditions of policy and constitutional order, offer advantages to agents in a society threatened violent.


Consumer Sovereignty Re-Examined: Applications Of The Merit Goods Argument, Goutam U. Jois Feb 2007

Consumer Sovereignty Re-Examined: Applications Of The Merit Goods Argument, Goutam U. Jois

Goutam U Jois

No abstract provided.


Optimality And Synchronicity - Where Do We Stand? Oca Theory And Its Empirical Application For Emu, Joanna Tyrowicz Jan 2007

Optimality And Synchronicity - Where Do We Stand? Oca Theory And Its Empirical Application For Emu, Joanna Tyrowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

Should Poland join EMU? The answer to this question has already been determined by both economists and politicians - by joining EU Poland has agreed to eventually join EMU, which barely any serious economists find to be harmful to our economy. However, the moment of joining the currency union has not been determined and its choice is largely left to the decision of Polish policy makers. Obviously, there are some costs to entering the currency union, as well as some benefits. However, since both the process of accessing and the very participation in the EMU are dynamic in nature, the …


Log-Concave Probability And Its Applications, Ted Bergstrom, Mark Bagnoli Jan 2005

Log-Concave Probability And Its Applications, Ted Bergstrom, Mark Bagnoli

Ted C Bergstrom

In many applications,assumptions about the log-concavity of a probability distribution allow just enough special structure to yield a workable theory.This paper catalogs a series of theorems relating log-concavity and/or log-convexity of probability density functions,distribution functions,reliability functions,and their integrals. We list a large number of commonly-used probability distributions and report the log-concavity or log-convexity of their density functions and their integrals. We also discuss a variety of applications of log-concavity that have appeared in the literature. (The current draft corrects a typo in Table 3.)