Economic Theory Commons^™

All Games Have Equilibria, Arthur Paul Pedersen, M. Ali Khan, Maxwell B. Stinchcombe

Publications and Research

Research on Nash equilibrium existence for infinite games has grown into a patchwork of technical preconditions and counterexamples. This paper presents a unified program in equilibrium theory by revising the predominant model of mixed strategies based on countable additivity. A game is specified by a nonempty set of players and, for each player, a nonempty action set and a bounded von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function. Every such game is shown to admit a Nash equilibrium in finitely additive mixed strategies. In addition, the equilibrium correspondence for any such game is shown to be nonempty, compact-valued, and upper hemicontinuous, and the same …

All Games Have Equilibria, M. Ali Khan, Arthur Paul Pedersen, Maxwell B. Stinchcombe

Publications and Research

Research on Nash equilibrium existence for infinite games has grown into a patchwork of technical preconditions and counterexamples. This paper presents a unified program in equilibrium theory by revising the predominant model of mixed strategies based on countable additivity. A game is specified by a nonempty set of players and, for each player, a nonempty action set and a bounded von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function. Every such game is shown to admit a Nash equilibrium in finitely additive mixed strategies. In addition, the equilibrium correspondence for any such game is shown to be nonempty, compact-valued, and upper hemicontinuous, and the same …

The Struggles For Equality And Democracy In Modern China: Which Was More Influential?, Angelina K. Lambros

Publications and Research

This paper analyzes the struggles for democracy and equality in modern China, from the fall of the Qing Dynasty to the Tiananmen Square movement. It considers which struggle was more influential, evaluating the recurring theme of a fight for democracy in China since the New Culture Movement, and a quest for social and economic equality that Mao and the Chinese Communist Party committed themselves to. Ultimately, the paper concludes that the struggle for democratic norms and institutions was always present among the Chinese people, but it did not succeed in pushing the government or the Party to adopt political reforms. …

Thinking Blue / Writing Red: Marxism And The (Post)Human, Stephen C. Tumino

Publications and Research

Thinking Blue/Writing Red interrogates contemporary culture across a range of texts, from the pandemic (‘Covid’ and ‘Trump Speak’) to high theory (Melville's narratives) and popular culture (Beyoncé's ‘Formation’ and Super Bowl performance, Twin Peaks , metamodern ‘cli-fi’ films). Inspired by Derrida’s idea of the secret, Tumino examines the significance of social movements (Black Lives Matter, Occupy, alter-globalization) and naïve art (Darger, Ryden) to argue that these texts speak of the secrets that capitalism cannot speak. Contending that the cultural surfaces narrate only the ‘nonsecret,’ that to see the social logic of the culture one must dig into what Bruno Latour …

We Cannot Labor Our Way Out Of Oppression: An Exploratory Study Of Wealth Through Black Women’S Lived Experience, Tiffany N. Younger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An exploratory qualitative phenomenological study was used to explore Black women’s experiences with wealth accumulation. The aims of this study were to better understand how Black women navigate financial obligations as heads of households and the impact of the wealth gap on their lives. The research on the wealth gap, informed by U.S. values and culture, has assumed the accumulation of wealth is the baseline/default goal or aspiration for all individuals. More specifically the subaims of this study sought to examine the extent to which the structural, interpersonal, disciplinary, and hegemony impacts Black women’s wealth status. Furthermore, this study sought …

Eco 11, Karen David Prof.

Open Educational Resources

This the syllabus for the ECO 11 Microeconomics course taught by Prof. David. It is a ZTC course using an OpenStax OER textbook.

Circular Economy: The 4rs Reduce-Reuse-Recycle-Recover, Kevin Hom

Publications and Research

This article summarizes the lecture presented at the Net Built 2024 conference. The lecture addresses the unsustainability of the current linear economy, characterized by the "take, make, dispose" model, in light of environmental challenges. The inefficiencies of this system lead to increased energy consumption, elevated CO2 emissions, and the exacerbation of climate change. It examines the current state of design and construction with respect to climate change and sustainable resource management. Additionally, the lecture introduces a methodology that integrates technologies and design philosophies capable of driving significant positive change. By advocating for a transformative approach to the expected lifetime of …

Fairness Doesn't Have To Be Egalitarian: Evidence From Bargaining Games, Kevin Wong

Theses and Dissertations

I develop a theoretical model and provide experimental evidence that social norms of fairness play a critical role in determining equilibrium outcomes in bargaining games.

Universal Basic Income And The Alaska Permanent Fund: Impact On Labor Outcomes And Skill Composition, Michele Cafasso

Theses and Dissertations

To analyze the effects of universal basic income on labor supply and human capital, I estimate the effects of Alaska’s Permanent Fund on employment, hours worked, and skills using data from the Current Population Survey and O*NET. My method combines synthetic control and difference-in-differences regressions.

The Effects Of Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility On Financial Returns, Kevin Acevedo

Theses and Dissertations

A major issue concerning companies is global warming and the impact that firms have on the environment. Companies are taking steps towards sustainability, but it is unclear if sustainable business practices are beneficial to companies’ financial performance. This paper examines the effect of environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) of Fortune 250 companies on financial performance. The analysis reveals significant effects on financial performance, but they are inconsistent and hard to interpret.

After The Cambridge Controversies: Reflections Old And New, Harvey Gram

Publications and Research

Perfect foresight is a consequence of applying the Pontryagin Maximum Principle to the analysis of an intertemporal general equilibrium. For this reason, the capital theory controversy ended in an intellectual impasse. The critique of mainstream theory largely ignored the perfect foresight entailments of intertemporal equilibrium analysis, while its defenders, with notable exceptions, too often failed to acknowledge this implication of the technique of dynamic programming. From this standpoint, the long debate over the existence or non-existence of an aggregate production function is secondary. This leaves open the theoretical question of how to proceed with an analysis of the actual dynamics …

Intentional Group Curation Of Information (Open Pedagogy Example), Dorina Tila

Open Educational Resources

This assignment aims at making instruction student-centered where students would participate in the curation of content. Students are asked to explain the various economic topics using the economic terminology and personal experience. For example, in this assignment, the students are split in groups and asked to discuss and identify what their opportunity cost of getting a college degree is. They will discuss all the items that comprise the opportunity cost and the benefits of going to college and share this in real time with everyone else through a google document.

Assignment Learning Outcomes:

• Define and apply the notion of opportunity …

A Defense And Expansion Of The Theory Of Capitalist Ground Rent: Speculation, Securitization, And Struggles Over Land And Housing, Francesca Manning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Why are the rents so high? Who is responsible for homelessness, for urban and rural displacement? How can these problems be combatted?

Recent literature addressing these questions has pointed to gentrification and the financialization of land and housing, faulted financialized landlords, hedge funds, and the irredeemable logic of finance, and pointed to the importance of land and housing regulation to prevent displacement.

However, theories of displacement—in both land and housing, on both urban and rural terrain—suffer from a lack of an underlying theory of the logic, tendencies, and limits of ground rent extraction in capitalism.

This dissertation develops a theory …

New Kid On The Blockchain: The Rise Of Cryptocurrency In The Global Arena: Humanitarian Usage With Blockchain, Rhonda S. Binda

Open Educational Resources

In 2018, the world was shaken by the fast rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that use a decentralized, blockchain technology for payment transfers outside of the traditional banking system. The potential impact this alternative form of banking could have in the medium and long term on the over 2 billion people globally unbanked is tremendous. Additionally, blockchain itself is being used for value transfer combined with bio and genetic tagging technologies in refugee camps for example, bringing to rise a new era where technology for development is disrupting education, healthcare and security programs globally.

Shocks To Aggregate Demand And Aggregate Supply In The Midst Of Covid-19, Anna M. Gellerman

Publications and Research

COVID-19 sent shockwaves throughout the economy, changing the amounts of goods and services distributed and altering the demand. This article discusses the negative demand shock and adverse supply shock that the U.S. economy faced in 2020, and the policies that the government implemented to reverse these effects.

The End Of Zero Returns And The Last Dollar: Can New York State Create A Collective Store Of Value, Crowdsource Wealth, And Fund Its Colleges And Universities Using Cryptocurrency?, Edward Lehner

Publications and Research

This brief personal statement, citing the previous work of the Bronx Community College Cryptocurrency Research Laboratory (BCC Lab), advocates for a private New York State Money to fund New York State’s public higher education. Attempting to shed most of the academic language and the formalities of research-driven writing, this short statement frames two distinct arguments. The first contention is that New York State residents need a means by which to store value outside of the traditional banking and financial systems due to massive Federal Reserve printing that is centered primarily on rescuing fledgling Wall Street profits and mitigating reckless businesses …

The Effect Of Outward Foreign Direct Investment On Exports In Japan During The Lost Decade, 1985-2005, Alexandros Ladas

Dissertations and Theses

This study will utilize an OLS analysis of the panel data coming from various databases such as the World Bank, Federal Reserve and etc. to determine if there exists a significant correlation between the exports of Japan and its foreign direct investment (FDI) in the period of 1985-2005 with nearby trading partners of which include the countries of ASEAN, China and South Korea. In addition, a selection of supplemental factors will be used to determine if they also possess any significance with exports. These factors include: the exchange rate of the Japanese yen with the currency of the trading partner …

Teoria Da Crise E A Queda Da Taxa De Lucro, David Harvey

Publications and Research

Abstract:

David Harvey’s article argues against the importance given to the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF), suggest­ing that Marx derived the « law » under « draconian » assumptions and that Engels was far more enthusiastic about it than Marx, who never went back to the theory later in his life despite its evident incompleteness. Therefore, he argues, we should not take his the­oretical conclusions too far. In his view, Marx perceived crises as momentary and violent eruptions that resolve the existing contra­dictions which can be considered as opportunities of capitalist re­construction rather …

Essays In New Keynesian Monetary Policy, Tzu-Hao Huang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dissertation consists of three Chapters. I consider New Keynesian models which involve tradeoffs between output gap and inflation variances. Such policy strategy is often referred to as flexible inflation targeting rules (e.g., Lars Svensson 2011, pp.1238-95). Taylor rules, in general, have the symbolic expression ��_t=��_x��_t+��_����_t+��_g��_t, where ��_t is the nominal interest rate at period t, ��_t is the target variable output gap at period t, ��_t is the target variable inflation rate at period t, ��_t is realized shock …

The Catalyst Effect Of Historic Preservation: A Spatial Analysis Of The Impact Of Historic District Designation On Housing Renovations In New York City, Ali R. Mostafa

Theses and Dissertations

The constraints on property use along with the economic merits of historic districts are critical points in the debate over preservation policies. Improving the existing housing stock is a substantial economic activity and a significant part of the nation’s overall construction industry. The purpose of this study is to present an empirical analysis of the relationship between historic district designation and renovation decisions. The results of the analysis found that historic preservation does not inhibit the renovation activity of single-family homeowners. However, contrary to the claims made by proponents, it does not give a powerful incentive for owners in undesignated …

Essays On Wealth Inequality And Asset Pricing, Georgios Koimisis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Economic and financial theories are often found to be in conflict with empirical evidence, suggesting revisions and elaborations of existing models. There are usually many revisions proposed in response to these "puzzles", but often the true resolution may be a factor not yet realized. This dissertation consists of three chapters and contributes to the explanation of a persistent and significant anomaly, the equity premium puzzle, by taking into account the implications of wealth inequality on consumer preferences and, consequently, on asset prices.

The first chapter examines how wealth inequality affects asset prices in a complete market setting. Wealth inequality is …

Essays On Inequality And Macroeconomic Stability, Thomas Hauner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters. . .

Chapter 1: Aggregate Wealth and Its Distribution as Determinants of Financial Crises: Panel Evidence This essay investigates the relationship between wealth inequality and financial crises across a panel of nine advanced economies over the past 100 years. While substantiation of a role for income inequality is ambiguous in the literature, evidence is presented suggesting a unique capacity for the accumulation of assets to increase the likelihood of a future financial crisis episode. Testing long-run panel data with a reduced form, two-way fixed effects model, estimates suggest that increasing wealth inequality, in an …

The Effect Of Paid Sick Leave On Physician Office-Based Visits, Korvin Vicente

Theses and Dissertations

This paper uses a balanced sample of workers from cross-sections of the National Health Interview Survey to estimate the causal effects of paid sick leave on the medical care seeking behavior of individuals, as measured by physician office-based visits.

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Economics 201 (Macroeconomic Theory), Bettina E. Berch

Open Educational Resources

This is a zero textbook cost syllabus for teaching macroeconomic theory at the 200 level at a community college. It is designed for a one semester course, using a creative commons textbook and a variety of open source podcasts, newspaper articles, and other materials available to CUNY students.

Housing Market Liquidity And The Effect On Unemployment In The United States: An Application To The U.S. Housing Market, Isolating Regional Housing Market Liquidity And The Associated Effect On Unemployment, Lindsey M. Piegza

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study proposes a measure of price spread between the bid (or the offer price from the buyer) and the ask (or the list price of the seller) in order to isolate the effect of housing market liquidity on unemployment. Housing market liquidity is defined as its impact on labor market equilibrium and unemployment at the state and regional levels. This proxy for housing market liquidity offers a more thorough measure of housing liquidity or market clearing ability compared with the current literature, which has relied on price or price changes alone as the primary measure of activity in the …

Patterns Of Growth And The Economic Development Of China, Adam C. Watson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

By looking at the historical rise of modern China, starting with the end of the First Opium War (1842) through to the start of the war with Japan (1937), and then from the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms (1979) to the present, this work reveals the striking similarities between the earlier and the later periods of capitalist development. If the country had not been able to draw on the deep-rooted knowledge and skills which originated in Shanghai and the port cities in the mid-nineteenth century, and instead pursued only uninformed free market principles without the training to make these …

Geospatial Modeling Of Vietnamese Fdi, Cuong Nguyen Tien

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis sets a goal to analyze and project geographically disaggregated measures of FDI using aggregate data. We regress the country level FDI with aggregate, fine geospatial data on GDP, urban extent, and risk. By disaggregating the model, we will predict the FDI flow in every 1000 square kilometer area.

Insatiability And Crisis: Using Interdisciplinarity To Understand (And Denaturalize) Contemporary Humans, Sean P. Macdonald, Costas Panayotakis

Publications and Research

This chapter illustrates how collaboration between different social sciences can encourage students to think critically about prevailing assumptions regarding human nature. Both the chapter and the pedagogical experience on which it is based investigate the distinctive type of human created by capitalist society. In so doing, it takes a heterodox approach to analyzing the concept of an insatiable human nature through a case study that invites students to critically assess this perspective. This discussion then leads to an investigation and critique of traditional neoclassical Economic assumptions about human behavior, which forms the basis for a case study on the causes …

Essays On Spatial Econometrics: Estimation Methods And Applications, Osman Dogan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of four essays on the estimation methods and applications of spatial econometrics models. In the first essay, we consider a spatial econometric model containing spatial lags in the dependent variable and the disturbance terms with an unknown form of heteroskedasticity in the innovations. We first prove that the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) is generally inconsistent when heteroskedasticity is not taken into account in the estimation. We show that the necessary condition for consistency of the MLE depends on the specification of the spatial weight matrices. Then, we extend the robust generalized method of moment (GMM) estimation approach …

Committee Decision Making In Monetary Policy, Hyungju Cha

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

One reason of the criticism about Taylor rule would be that the rule could not provide a micro foundation about the decision-making mechanism. because it is simply describing the policy process in terms of the short-term nominal interest rate. In order to reconcile the tension between critics and supporters of Taylor rule, chapter I employs the theory of team, which investigates how members in a team interact to determine optimal decisions. Using team theory, it is shown how optimal monetary policy is results from committee members' interactions.

In chapter II, if the government cannot recognizes that the monetary policy can …