Economic Theory Commons^™

Getting Dynamic Implementation To Work, Yi-Chun Chen, Richard Holden, Takashi Kunimoto, Yifei Sun, Tom Wilkening

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a new class of two-stage mechanisms, which fully implement any social choice function under initial rationalizability in complete information environments. We show theoretically that our Simultaneous Report (SR) mechanisms are robust to small amounts of incomplete information about the state of nature. We also highlight the robustness of the mechanisms to a wide variety of reasoning processes and behavioral assumptions. We show experimentally that a SR mechanism performs well in inducing truth-telling in both complete and incomplete information environments and that it can induce efficient investment in a two-sided hold-up problem with ex-ante investment. The SR mechanism also …

Competing Social Influence In Contested Diffusion: Luther, Erasmus And The Spread Of The Protestant Reformation, Sascha O. Becker, Steven Pfaff, Yuan Hsiao, Jared Rubin

ESI Working Papers

The spread of radical institutional change does not often result from one-sided pro-innovation influence; countervailing influence networks in support of the status quo can suppress adoption. We develop a model of multiple and competing network diffusion. To apply the contested-diffusion model to real data, we look at the contest between Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus, the two most influential intellectuals of early 16th-century Central Europe. Whereas Luther championed a radical reform of the Western Church that broke with Rome, Erasmus opposed him, stressing the unity of the Church. In the early phase of the Reformation, these two figures utilized influence …

Asymmetric Effects In Geopolitical Risk And Foreign Reserves Accumulation Among Brics Countries, Kwame O. Asomaning

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

Over the past decade, the rise of Geopolitical Risk (GPR) has had a significant effect on macro financial variables, prompting central banks to accumulate reserves as a "war chest" to protect their economies from the detrimental effects of such shocks. This study examines the asymmetries in the long run, short run, and locational asymmetric effects on foreign reserves in the BRICS countries, using both the Nonlinear ARDL (NARDL) and Quantile ARDL (QARDL) models over the period 2000Q1–2021Q4. The results of the NARDL model suggest that GPR has long-run asymmetric effects for BRICS, while in the short run, all countries display …

An Experimental Test Of Algorithmic Dismissals, Brice Corgnet

ESI Working Papers

We design a laboratory experiment in which a human or an algorithm decides which of two workers to dismiss. The algorithm automatically dismisses the least productive worker whereas human bosses have full discretion over their decisions. Using performance metrics and questionnaires, we find that fired workers react more negatively to human than to algorithmic decisions in a broad range of tasks. We show that spitefulness exacerbated this negative reaction. Our findings suggest algorithms could help tame negative reactions to dismissals.

God Games: An Experimental Study Of Uncertainty, Superstition, And Cooperation, Aidin Hajikhameneh, Laurence R. Iannaccone

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This paper uses a novel lab experiment to test claims about the origins and functions of religion. We modify the standard public goods game, adding a computer-based agent that adjusts earnings in ways that might depend on players' contributions. Our treatments employ three different descriptions of the adjustment process that loosely correspond to monotheistic, atheistic, and agnostic interpretations of the computer's role. The adjustments neither mask players' contributions nor magnify their impact. Yet players in all three adjustment treatments contribute much more than those who play the standard public goods game. Players' contributions and survey responses show that adjustments induce …

The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 12, Spring 2023

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Remote Work On Firm Level Productivity, Katherine Fullowan

Gettysburg Economic Review

This paper investigates the impact of remote work on firm-level productivity. To observe this trend, we develop a theoretical model to understand how an economy performs. We consider the economy as a collection of firms in an attempt to maximize profit. By observing a firms profit function, we are able to derive their productivity by maximizing a representative firm’s profit function. For simplicity purposes, this study treats labor as the only factor of production to focus solely on how changes in the number of remote workers impact productivity. We ultimately find that productivity increases when the number of remote workers …

Intrinsic Unrealism: The Ineffectiveness Of Neoclassical Economic Models, Robert N. Meyer

Gettysburg Economic Review

The idea of equilibrium and the usefulness of the neoclassical models that employ it are questionable due to the unrealistic built-in assumptions that they utilize, which have androcentric biases and fail to consider the open-endedness of human choice. This essay will replace the idea that neoclassical economic models are effective and that realism does not matter in the field of economics. It will rely on historical and contemporary sources in the areas of Philosophy, Sociology, Politics, and of course, Economics to explain why these unrealistic and androcentric assumptions nullify the usefulness of the neoclassical models that employ them. The essay …

Endogenous Money And The Structure Of Interest Rates, Grishma Neupane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis examines the empirical patterns of interest rates in the United States in the period from 1992 to 2019. Looking into the patterns of interest rates, the spread between the Federal Funds rate and long-term interest rate is widening in the post-1990s period with the remarkable acceleration of financial innovation and financial deregulation. There has been increasing concerns about the power of monetary authorities in controlling market interest rates by setting the Federal Funds rate.

My thesis builds on the theoretical as well as the empirical literature discussing the debates among the Post-Keynesians about the determination of interest rates …

Universal Basic Income (Ubi): A Cure-All Or Band-Aid?, Madison Beckner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the triple crisis of capitalism looming and, in the U.S., a poorly performing welfare state, Universal Basic Income (UBI) has returned to popular attention. To assess whether this is warranted and, more importantly, to provide answer on the extent to which a UBI can or should be considered a cure-all, this work, first, examines the historical development of UBI proposals including those stemming from European Social Democrats and Libertarians. Next, pilot programs at the local, state, and national level are critically examined for their methodologies and empirical results. Turning, then, to theory on de-commodification, unpaid labor, and the equality-jobs …

Three Essays In Applied Microeconomics: Philly Style, Alexander Christian Marsella

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

My dissertation analyzes several contemporary policy-based and institutional occurrences in an urban setting to help guide further advancements in reducing violence, drug overdose deaths, and other unhealthy behaviors that city governments look to curb. Several recent developments in Philadelphia offer a promising setting for studying policies that have broad implications.

Chapter 1 examines the effect of the West Philadelphia Promise Zone initiative on violent crime rates in a high-crime area of West Philadelphia, where a series of educational, public-safety, and quality-of-life improvement grants were disbursed from 2014 onward. My difference-in-differences analysis with two-way fixed effects and cluster bootstrapped standard errors …

Adam Smith And The Creative Role Of Imagination, Keith Hankins, Brennan Mcdavid

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

That imagination plays a fundamental role in Smith’s accounts of both sympathy and scientific inquiry is well documented. Smith scholars have also long recognized that the accounts of these roles presented in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the History of Astronomy are broadly Humean. In particular, the exercise of imagination in both the social and scientific domains is limited by the extent of our experience. Whether we are “changing places in fancy” with our fellows, thereby giving rise to that all-important sentiment of sympathy, or conjecturing relations between observed phenomena in an effort to quell the sentiments of wonder …

The Meaning Of Optimum And Chosen Method Of Optimization Are Individually Defined, Jeffrey Yi-Lin Forrest, Lawrence Shao, Jun Liu, Brian Sloboda

Pennsylvania Economic Review

Finding the true meaning of the assumption of rationality has attracted the attention of many scholars and brought forward major changes to the discipline of economics. However, the vast amount of literature shows that such attention has not only led to inconsistent interpretations, but also contradictory ones. To clear up these inconsistencies and contradictions, this paper looks at this assumption from a different angle – natural endowments of individuals and business firms, respectively. To do so successfully, this research goes far beyond all well-adopted methods of analysis and employs systems methods and such a logical reasoning that is parallel to …

Factors That Enable Or Hinder The Transition Of Some Gulf Cooperation Council (Gcc) Countries To Green Energy, Verkine Keukpanossian

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries continue to play a strategic role in the global energy system. They account for a fifth of the global oil production and enjoy relatively high GDP per Capita, and their economies heavily rely on oil-producing and exporting at a time when the West is pushing towards net-zero, low-carbon emissions by 2050. This study focuses on the energy sector and takes a transdisciplinary look at Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and tries to understand how these rentier monarchies that have built a solid global comparative advantage in producing and exporting oil and …

Loose Pamphlets, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• The global financial system after the meltdown. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, & Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. 2009. New York. [Unpublished conference materials].
• Stability with growth: macroeconomics, liberalization and development. Ocampo, J. A., Stiglitz, J. E., Spiegel, S., Ffrench-Davis, R., & Nayyar, D. 2006. Oxford University Press.
• The predator state: how conservatives abandoned the free market and why liberals should too. Galbraith, J. K. 2008. Free Press.
• Balancing acts: technology, finance and the American future. Galbraith, J. K. 1989. Basic Books.
• Created unequal: the crisis in American pay. Galbraith, J. K. 1998. …

A Philosophical And Empirical Investigation Into Buddhist Economics, Hannah Doyle

CMC Senior Theses

There is a growing body of literature on Buddhist economics from a philosophical perspective; however, no work to date has sought to empirically validate it as an effective economic theory at a global scale. In my paper, I draw on the long history of Buddhist metaphysics to construct an account of Buddhist ethics and then proceed to derive a set of Buddhist economic principles. I draw on the World Happiness Report’s methodology to quantitatively demonstrate the relationship between Buddhist economic principles and the psychological wellbeing of a country’s citizens, as measured through their own evaluation of their quality of life …

The Paycheck Protection Program's Effect On Real Estate Prices, Someswar Amujala

CMC Senior Theses

This paper investigates the relationship between the Paycheck Protec- tion Program (PPP) and real estate price increases. The Paycheck Protection Program was established by the Small Business Association in 2020 to pro- vide forgivable loans to businesses to aid with potential losses from COVID- 19 impacts. I leverage zip code level data across the United States and a fixed effects panel data model to quantitatively measure the PPP’s influence on housing and rental prices. I find a positive and significant relationship between the number of PPP loans disbursed and housing and rental rates. Specifically, a 1% change in the number …

Impact Of Demand For H1b Visas In The Us On The Performance Of Listed Indian Firms, Jayaditya Shekhar Maliye

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between Indian firm performance and the demand for H1B visas in the US. To test this relationship, a fixed effects model has been used on a panel dataset of 104 Indian firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) over the period 2009 to 2021. The results show that an increase in H1B visa demand is negatively and significantly associated with Indian firm performance. These findings suggest that the US’s demand for high skilled labor overseas has consequences for firms in the home country.

So It Goes: Hauntology, Lost Futures, And Mac Miller, Ryan Hiemenz

Capstone Showcase

Hauntology is a relatively new concept born out of the current state of late capitalism, wherein it has become increasingly common for new releases of popular culture, art, and media to appease the societal desire to return to the past. First coined by Jacques Derrida in his book Specters of Marx, the term “Hauntology” was used to describe the phenomenon of the “death” of communism and how the capitalist powers that “killed” it essentially made the idea of communism immortal. They made it a specter, and ghosts cannot die. This concept was then altered by the late Mark Fisher, …

Loose Notes And Interview Questions, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Pamphlet for First international seminar: the global crisis and the myths of free trade, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, May 13–15, unpublished work.
• Interview questions for Professor Anwar Shaikh, Nick Anderson, October 30, 2023, unpublished work.
• Handwritten notes on deck glass cost, Anwar Shaikh, undated, unpublished work.
• Handwritten notes on New School for Social Research interview, Anwar Shaikh, undated, unpublished work.
• Handwritten research notes titled Munshuma, Anwar Shaikh, June 18, 2020, unpublished work.
• Handwritten notes on advanced microeconomics consumer theory, Anwar Shaikh, undated, unpublished work.
• Handwritten notes on central banking …