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Articles 601 - 620 of 620

Full-Text Articles in Other Economics

Go West Young Man: Self-Selection And Endogenous Property Rights, Taylor Jaworski, Bart J. Wilson Jan 2009

Go West Young Man: Self-Selection And Endogenous Property Rights, Taylor Jaworski, Bart J. Wilson

ESI Working Papers

If, as Hume argues, property is a self-referring custom of a group of people, then property rights depend on how that group forms and orders itself. In this paper we investigate how people construct a convention for property in an experiment in which groups of self-selected individuals can migrate between three geographically separate regions. We find that the absence of property rights clearly decreases wealth in our environment and that interest in establishing property rights is a key determinant of the decision to migrate to a new region. Theft is nearly eliminated among migrants, resulting in strong growth, and non-migrants …


The Multiple Dimensions Of Male Social Status In An Amazonian Society, Christopher Von Rueden, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan Jun 2008

The Multiple Dimensions Of Male Social Status In An Amazonian Society, Christopher Von Rueden, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

"In all human societies, individuals differ in social status depending upon their age and personal ability (Sahlins, 1958; Service, 1971). In laboratory-based small group studies, status hierarchies emerge spontaneously (Bass, 1954; Campbell et al., 2002; Kalma, 1991). Even among “egalitarian” foragers, who are characterized by widespread resource sharing (Kaplan & Gurven, 2005; Winterhalder, 1986) and some degree of status-leveling (Cashdan, 1980), certain individuals consume more resources, get the best pick of mates, and take a more central role in group decision-making (Boehm, 1999; Trigger, 1985; Wiessner, 1996). Whether implicit or overt, classification by social status is a human universal. While …


Aging And Inflammation In Two Epidemiological Worlds, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking, Caleb Finch, Eileen M. Crimmins Feb 2008

Aging And Inflammation In Two Epidemiological Worlds, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking, Caleb Finch, Eileen M. Crimmins

ESI Publications

Humans evolved in a world with high levels of infection resulting in high mortality across the life span and few survivors to advanced ages. Under such conditions, a strong acute-phase inflammatory response was required for survival; however, inflammatory responses can also promote chronic diseases of aging. We hypothesize that global historical increases in life span at older ages are partly explained by reduced lifetime exposure to infection and subsequent inflammation. To begin a test of this hypothesis, we compare C-reactive protein (CRP); levels in two populations with different epidemiological environments: the Tsimane of Bolivia and persons in the United States. …


Another Example Of A Credit System That Coexists With Money, Gabriele Camera, Yiting Li Jan 2008

Another Example Of A Credit System That Coexists With Money, Gabriele Camera, Yiting Li

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We study an economy in which exchange occurs pairwise, there is no commitment, and anonymous agents choose between random monetary trade or deterministic credit trade. To accomplish the latter, agents can exploit a costly technology that allows limited recordkeeping and enforcement. An equilibrium with money and credit is shown to exist if the cost of using the technology is sufficiently small. Anonymity, record-keeping and enforcement limitations also permit some incidence of default, in equilibrium.


High Stakes Behavior With Low Payoffs: Inducing Preferences With Holt-Laury Gambles, John Dickhaut, Daniel Houser, Jason A. Aimone, Dorina Tila, Cathleen Johnson Jan 2008

High Stakes Behavior With Low Payoffs: Inducing Preferences With Holt-Laury Gambles, John Dickhaut, Daniel Houser, Jason A. Aimone, Dorina Tila, Cathleen Johnson

ESI Working Papers

A continuing goal of experiments is to understand risky decisions when the decisions are important. Often a decision’s importance is related to the magnitude of the associated monetary stake. Khaneman and Tversky (1979) argue that risky decisions in high stakes environments can be informed using questionnaires with hypothetical choices (since subjects have no incentive to answer questions falsely.) However, results reported by Holt and Laury (2002, henceforth HL), as well as replications by Harrison (2005) suggest that decisions in “high” monetary payoff environments are not well-predicted by questionnaire responses. Thus, a potential implication of the HL results is that studying …


Generating Ambiguity In The Laboratory, Jack Douglas Stecher, Timothy W. Shields, John Dickhaut Jan 2008

Generating Ambiguity In The Laboratory, Jack Douglas Stecher, Timothy W. Shields, John Dickhaut

ESI Working Papers

This article develops a method for drawing samples from which it is impossible to infer any quantile or moment of the underlying distribution. The method provides researchers with a way to give subjects the experience of ambiguity. In any experiment, learning the distribution from experience is impossible for the subjects, essentially because it is impossible for the experimenter. We describe our method mathematically, illustrate it in simulations, and then test it in a laboratory experiment. Our technique does not withhold sampling information, does not assume that the subject is incapable of making statistical inferences, is replicable across experiments, and requires …


Can Manipulators Mislead Prediction Market Observers?, Ryan Oprea, David Porter, Chris Hibbert, Robin Hanson, Dorina Tila Jan 2008

Can Manipulators Mislead Prediction Market Observers?, Ryan Oprea, David Porter, Chris Hibbert, Robin Hanson, Dorina Tila

ESI Working Papers

We study experimental markets where privately informed traders exchange simple assets, and where uninformed third parties are asked to forecast the values of these assets, guided only by market prices. Although prices only partially aggregate information, they signicantly improve the forecasts of third parties. In a second treatment, a portion of traders are given preferences over the forecasts made by observers. Although we find evidence that these traders attempt to manipulate prices in order to influence the beliefs of observers, we find no evidence that observers make less accurate forecasts as a result.


Culture Sometimes Matters: Intra-Cultural Variation In Pro-Social Behavior Among Tsimane Amerindians, Michael Gurven, Arianna Zanolini, Eric Schniter Sep 2007

Culture Sometimes Matters: Intra-Cultural Variation In Pro-Social Behavior Among Tsimane Amerindians, Michael Gurven, Arianna Zanolini, Eric Schniter

ESI Publications

Agent-centered models usually consider only individual-level variables in calculations of economic costs and benefits. There has been little consideration of social or cultural history on shaping payoffs in ways that impact decisions. To examine the role of local expectations on economic behavior, we explore whether village affiliation accounts for the variation in dictator game offers among the Tsimane of the Bolivian Amazon independently of other factors that could confound such an effect. Our analysis shows that significant differences in altruistic giving exist among villages, village patterns are recognized by residents, and offers likely reflect variation in social expectations rather than …


Rationality In Economics: Constructivist And Ecological Forms, Vernon L. Smith Jan 2007

Rationality In Economics: Constructivist And Ecological Forms, Vernon L. Smith

ESI Publications

Chapter 1: Rediscovering the Scottish Philosophers


On Patent Licensing In Spatial Competition, Sougata Poddar, Uday Bhanu Sinha May 2004

On Patent Licensing In Spatial Competition, Sougata Poddar, Uday Bhanu Sinha

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We consider the issue of patent licensing in a linear city framework where firms are located at the end points of the city and compete in price. We consider three types of licensing arrangements, namely, auction, fixed fee, royalty; and focus on the optimal licensing strategy of an outsider patentee as well as an insider patentee. Contrary to the findings in the existing literature, first we show offering royalty is the best for the patentee when the patentee is an outsider for both drastic and non-drastic innovation. For insider patentee, offering no-license is the best when the innovation is drastic, …


The Distribution Of Money And Prices In An Equilibrium With Lotteries, Aleksander Berentsen, Gabriele Camera, Christopher Waller Jan 2004

The Distribution Of Money And Prices In An Equilibrium With Lotteries, Aleksander Berentsen, Gabriele Camera, Christopher Waller

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We construct a tractable ‘fundamental’ model of money with equilibrium heterogeneity in money balances and prices. We do so by considering randomized monetary trades in a standard search-theoretic model of money where agents can hold multiple units of indivisible ‘tokens’ and can offer lotteries on monetary transfers. By studying a simple trading pattern, we can analytically characterize the monetary distribution. Interestingly, such distributions match those observed in numerically simulated economies with fully divisible money and price heterogeneity.


Rjvs In Product Innovation And Cartel Stability, Luca Lambertini, Sougata Poddar, Dan Sasaki Jan 2003

Rjvs In Product Innovation And Cartel Stability, Luca Lambertini, Sougata Poddar, Dan Sasaki

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We characterise the interplay between firms' decision in product development undertaken through a research joing venture (RJV), and the nature of their ensuing market behaviour. Participant firms in an RJV face a trade-off between saving the costs of product innovation by developing similar products to one another, e.g. by sharing most of the basic components of their products, and investing higher initial efforts in product innovation in order to develop more distinct products. We prove that the more the fims' products are distinct and thus less substitutable, the easier their collusion is to sustain in the marketing supergame, either in …


Excess Capacity: A Note, Sougata Poddar Jan 2003

Excess Capacity: A Note, Sougata Poddar

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In a two period model of strategic entry deterrence where the incumbent firm moves before the entrant by installing capacity for production, Dixit (1980) argued that in a (perfect) equilibrium excess capacity would not be observed, contradicting Spence's (1977) result on the same issue. In this note, we show that Dixit may not always remain true when we allow for demand uncertainty.


The Evolution Of Human Life Expectancy And Intelligence In Hunter-Gatherer Economies, Hillard Kaplan Jan 2003

The Evolution Of Human Life Expectancy And Intelligence In Hunter-Gatherer Economies, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

The economics of hunting and gathering must have driven the biological evolution of human characteristics, since hunter-gatherer societies prevailed for the two million years of human history. These societies feature huge intergenerational resource flows, suggesting that these resource flows should replace fertility as the key demographic consideration. It is then theoretically expected that life expectancy and brain size would increase simultaneously, as apparently occurred during our evolutionary history. The brain here is considered as a direct form of bodily investment, but also crucially as facilitating further indirect investment by means of learning-by-doing.


On The Macroeconomic Effects Of Establishing Tradability In Weak Property Rights, Gunnar Eliasson, Clas Wihlborg Jan 2003

On The Macroeconomic Effects Of Establishing Tradability In Weak Property Rights, Gunnar Eliasson, Clas Wihlborg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

The New Economy is closely associated with computing & communications technology, notably the Internet. We discuss property rights to, and trade in, the difficult-to-define intangible assets increasingly dominating the New Economy, and the possibility of under-investment in these assets. For a realistic analysis we introduce a Schumpeterian market environment (the experimentally organized economy). Weak property rights prevail when the rights to access, use, andtrade in intangible assets cannot be fully exercised. The trade-off between the benefits of open access on the Internet, and the incentive effects of strengthened property rights, depend both on the particular strategy a firm employs to …


Research Joint Ventures, Product Differentiation, And Price Collusion, Luca Lambertini, Sougata Poddar, Dan Sasaki Mar 2002

Research Joint Ventures, Product Differentiation, And Price Collusion, Luca Lambertini, Sougata Poddar, Dan Sasaki

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We investigate the interplay between firms’ decisions in product development, either joint or independent, and their ensuing repeated pricing, either collusive or Bertrand–Nash. A joint venture develops a single product, whereas independent ventures develop their respective products which can be differentiated. We prove that joint product development and the resulting lack of horizontal product differentiation may destabilise collusion, whilst firms’ R&D decisions have no bearings on collusive sustainability if differentiation is vertical. We also discover the non-monotone dependence of firms’ venture decisions at the development stage upon their time preferences, as well as upon consumers’ willingness to pay.


The New Basel Capital Accord: Making It Effective With Stronger Market Discipline, Harald Benink, Clas Wihlborg Jan 2002

The New Basel Capital Accord: Making It Effective With Stronger Market Discipline, Harald Benink, Clas Wihlborg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

In January 2001 the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision proposed a new capital adequacy framework to respond to deficiencies in the 1988 Capital Accord on credit risk. The main elements or ‘pillars’ of the proposal are capital requirements based on the internal risk-ratings of individual banks, expanded and active supervision, and information disclosure requirements to enhance market discipline. We discuss the incentive effects of the proposed regulation. In particular, we argue that it provides incentives for banks to develop new ways to evade the intended consequences of the proposed regulation. Supervision alone cannot prevent banks from ‘gaming and manipulation’ of …


Standardization And The Stability Of Collusion, Luca Lambertini, Sougata Poddar, Dan Sasaki Mar 1998

Standardization And The Stability Of Collusion, Luca Lambertini, Sougata Poddar, Dan Sasaki

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We characterize the interplay between firms' decision in terms of product standardization and the nature of their ensuing market behaviour. We prove the existence of a non-monotone relationship between firms' decision at the product stage and their intertemporal preferences.


Network Structure And Entry In The Deregulated Airline Industry, Joseph Berechman, Sougata Poddar, Oz Shy Jan 1998

Network Structure And Entry In The Deregulated Airline Industry, Joseph Berechman, Sougata Poddar, Oz Shy

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We explore how an incumbent airline firm structures its route network under the threat of entry caused by deregulation. We show that entry induces the incumbent firm to strategically alter its flight operating network from a fully connected network (FC) to a hub-and-spoke network (HS). While most of the literature always assumed that the use of of HS network is primarily for the purpose of cost reduction, we show that hub-and-spoke operation can be used as a strategic device by the incumbent firm when it faces a threat of entry in its operating zone.


Demand Fluctuations And Capacity Utilization Under Duopoly, J. J. Gabszewicz, Sougata Poddar Jan 1997

Demand Fluctuations And Capacity Utilization Under Duopoly, J. J. Gabszewicz, Sougata Poddar

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This paper studies the impact of uncertain demand on firms' capacity decisions when they operate in an oligopolistic environment. We define a two-stage game where firms choose capacity in the first stage without knowing which state of nature is going to realize, and output levels in the second, knowing which state is realized. We prove the existence of a symmetric subgame perfect equilibrium at which firms are in excess capacity compared with the capacity they would choose in the Cournot certainty equivalent game.