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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Experimental Markets And Chamberlin's Excess Trading Conjecture, Ted Bergstrom Jul 2004

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 Jan 2004

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 …