Economic Theory Commons^™

Working Paper No. 105, John Locke And The American Experiment, Riley Sharps

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that ideas advanced by the Englishman John Locke, regarding private property, natural rights, as well as a social contract for relations between authorities and governed, influenced the American experiment at its founding. Locke’s novel understanding regarding private property greatly influenced leaders railing against British dominance. His ideas were picked up by founding figures such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, as well as James Madison, and Thomas Paine. Through their leadership, in particular, Locke’s ideas were carried forward and served as the inspiration behind key concepts appearing in this new nation’s founding documents. First appearing in …

Working Paper No. 104, An Gorta Mór: The ‘Great Hunger’ And Irish Immigrant Labor In 19th Century America, Amanda Bergeson

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that portions of the population of Ireland -- responding to what has been referred to in their Celtic language as An Gorta Mór, or in the English language as the ‘Great Hunger -- took to emigrating en masse and therewith contributed bigly to the expansion of America’s labor supply. Bolsterd by Irish immigrants, this expanding mid-nineteenth century labor force provided for an abundance of workers needed for a broadly based industrialization, that would also lead to large-scale urbanization as well as a host of changes in this nation’s social fabric. Of note is that …

Working Paper No. 106, The Rise And Fall Of Whaling In Early America, Miranda Rehaume

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that whaling activities -- and later a whaling industry -- would play important roles in the economic development of the colonies that would, with time, form into the United States of America. Drawing from historical accounts, this inquiry explores how whaling emerged as a cornerstone of the colonial, New England economy as well as the early American transatlantic trade. It shall be argued that the industry’s prosperity was driven by capital investments that included the development of specialized ships and equipment, driven by the colonists’ determination to make the whaling industry prosper. However, repeated disruptions …

Oxytocin Varies Across The Life Course In A Sex-Specific Way In A Human Subsistence Population, Abigail E. Colby, Dominik C. Jud, Valerie Baettig, Jordan S. Martin, Camila Scaff, Michael D. Gurven, Benjamin C. Trumble, Bret A. Beheim, Paul L. Hooper, Daniel K. Cummings, Hillard Kaplan, Jonathan Stieglitz, Arnulfo Cary Ista, Adrian V. Jaeggi

ESI Publications

Oxytocin, a hormone linked to reproduction and health, may mediate life-history trade-offs across the human life course. Yet, how oxytocin naturally varies with age remains poorly understood. Here, working with the Tsimane, forager-horticulturalists of lowland Bolivia, we collected the largest sample of oxytocin measurements to date (n = 1,242 samples, n = 405 individuals, age = 2 to 84 y, 51% female), and i) examined how oxytocin varies throughout the life course in females and males, and ii) investigated potential drivers of age- and sex-specific variation. Our sample provides rare insight into the relationship between oxytocin and age in a …

Genetically Modified Crops In Africa: Evidence On Adoption, Economic Benefits, Environmental Effects, And Constraints, Aloyce Hepelwa, Innocensia John

Tanzanian Economic Review

Africa faces deep food insecurity with over 300 million undernourished people driven by, low agricultural productivity, and climate shocks. To enhance food production and sustainable development, there is potential seen in genetically modified (GM) crops. To explore the potential of GM crops, this paper examines their production, adoption, economic and environmental impacts, adoption barriers, and policy implications in Africa and globally. This is done using a structured narrative review of peer-reviewed literature, reports, and policy documents (2014–2024) sourced from different databases complemented by stakeholder consultations. The findings show that GM has expanded considerably worldwide driven by high productivity, reduced pesticide …

Contests With Ambiguous Prizes, Cary Deck, Aidan Hathaway, Emma Kate Henry, Tigran Melkonyan, Samuel Redinger

ESI Working Papers

This paper examines behavior in contests where the prize value is ambiguous. We develop a theoretical model of bidding in a Tullock contest with an ambiguous prize where contestants account for the ambiguity attitude of their rival. Ambiguity affects optimal behavior via two countervailing channels - a direct effect arising from contestants’ ambiguity about the value of the prize and an indirect effect corresponding to the effect of ambiguity on the opponent’s behavior. Using a controlled laboratory experiment, we elicit individual risk and ambiguity attitudes and compare predicted and observed behavior in contests with an ambiguous prize, a risky prize …

Strategic Interactions And Gender Cues: Evidence From Social Preference Games, Hernán Bejarano, Matias Busso, Juan Francisco Santos

ESI Working Papers

This paper studies trust, reciprocity, and bargaining using a large-scale online experiment conducted in six Latin American countries. Participants played trust and ultimatum games under randomly assigned conditions in which the gender of their counterpart was either disclosed or withheld. On average, disclosing counterpart gender does not yield statistically detectable effects in either game. However, statistically significant differences emerge by participants' own gender: on average men exhibit higher levels of trust, reciprocity, and generosity in bargaining than women. When disaggregating by participant-counterpart gender pairings, point estimates differ in sign across groups but are generally imprecisely estimated, and differences between interacting …

The Bandwagon Model, Dean A. Williams

All Dissertations

Professional sports teams are in the entertainment market where owners of teams invest in players with the hopes of converting their talents into wins, and in turn, added revenues for their team. To gain an understanding of the incentives that shape these team talent investment decisions, prior economists have created theoretical models of professional sports leagues that give predictions regarding the cost to acquire talent, and the winning percentage of teams from different market sizes. These models are then used to show how team talent investment decisions change once professional sports leagues implement policies such as first-year player drafts, salary …

5th International Annual Conference Proceedings: A New Global Order, Yet Again, Centre For Business And Economic Research (Cber), School Of Economics And Social Sciences (Sess)

Conference Proceedings

The School of Economics and Social Sciences (SESS) and the Center for Business and Economics Research (CBER) at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi, are pleased to announce the 5th International Annual Conference on "A New Global Order, Yet Again" In an era marked by geopolitical realignments, technological innovations, green transitions, climate change, and evolving trade dynamics, the global economic landscape is undergoing an unprecedented transformation. Developing economies today face multifaceted challenges: leveraging new opportunities in a decentralized global system while managing debt insolvency risk, uncertainties in international trade, climate change vulnerabilities, and rising socioeconomic inequality.

This conference seeks …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Dictators And Lying Dictators: An Experimental Investigation Of Preference Based-Group Biases In Chinese And American Interactions, Aaron S. Berman, Saika Cer Askin, Shapeng Jiang, David Porter, Jason Shachat

ESI Working Papers

This study examines preference-based behavioral biases in social interactions between two distinct communities: students from Chapman University in the United States and Wuhan University in China. Using controlled experiments, participants interacted within or across communities in Dictator games. Two versions of the Dictator game were used: one where decisions were observable by both the experimenter and the recipient, and another where allocators could misreport outcomes with plausible deniability. Results revealed unexpected patterns, including similar allocation distributions across communities in the transparent task, and differing behaviors in the misreporting task, with Chapman allocators being more generous to out-group members and Wuhan …

Identifying Effective Corporate Financial Strategies For Overcoming Economic Shocks: A Literature Review, Selvi Permata Groda, Muazila Norisnita

Jurnal Administrasi Bisnis Terapan

The current era of heightened global economic uncertainty necessitates a thorough understanding of corporate financial strategies that enable firms to weather economic shocks. This literature review systematically identifies and analyzes financial strategies and practices that have demonstrated effectiveness in mitigating the negative impacts of events such as geopolitical instability. The methodology involves a comprehensive synthesis of existing scholarly articles focusing on corporate finance responses to global economic volatility. This study examines strategies related to funding, capital structure, cash management, and investment, evaluating their success in fostering financial resilience. Furthermore, the review integrates relevant financial theories, including the pecking order, trade-off, …

Competition Through Entry Fees Between Auctions For Differentiated Objects, Massimiliano Landi, Domenico Menicucci, Domenico Colucci

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper considers two competing auctions with objects differentiated according to the random utility framework introduced in Perloff and Salop (1985): bidders privately observe their values for the two objects, and values are ex ante i.i.d. across objects and across bidders. For the case of uniform distribution of values, we show that competition under entry fees is less intense than competition under reserve prices in the sense that sellers are better off, and bidders are worse off when competition takes place with entry fees rather than under reserve prices. The key difference between the two settings is that undercutting under …

Robust Implementation In Rationalizable Strategies In General Mechanisms, Takashi Kunimoto, Rene Saran

Research Collection School Of Economics

A social choice function (SCF) is robustly implementable in rationalizable strate-gies if every rationalizable strategy profile on every type space results in outcomes consistent with it. First, we establish an equivalence between robust implementation in rationalizable strategies and “weak rationalizable implementation”. Second, using the equivalence result, we identify weak robust monotonicity as a necessary and al-most sufficient condition for robust implementation in rationalizable strategies. This exhibits a contrast with robust implementation in interim equilibria, i.e., every equilib-rium on every type space achieves outcomes consistent with the SCF. Bergemann and Morris (2011) show that strict robust monotonicity is a necessary and …

Poking Holes And Adding Points In Dictator Games, James C. Cox, Cary Deck, Laura Razzolini, Vjollca Sadiraj

ESI Working Papers

Deviations from choices predicted by self-regarding preferences have regularly been observed in standard dictator games. Such behavior is not inconsistent with conventional preference theory or revealed preference theory, which accommodate other-regarding preferences. By contrast, experiments in which giving nothing is not the least generous feasible act produce data that is inconsistent with conventional preference theory including social preference models and suggest the possible relevance of reference point models. Two such models are the reference-dependent theory of riskless choice with loss aversion and choice monotonicity in moral reference points. Our experiment includes novel treatments designed to challenge both theoretical models of …

How Fair Workweek Laws Affect Labor Markets: A New York City Case Study, Joseph Pickens, Aaron Sojourner

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Final Offer Arbitration With Asymmetric Evidence, Yongjoon Kim, Afia Promi, Jiatong Xue, Cary Deck

ESI Working Papers

As disputants increasingly rely upon arbitration it is critical to understand outcomes that are likely to arise from mechanisms like final offer arbitration. While a sizable experimental literature investigating strategic behavior in final offer arbitration exists, that work has overwhelmingly focused on situations where the arbitrator’s beliefs about the appropriate resolution are symmetric and uninfluenced by the disputants’ cases. This paper considers a setting where the arbitrator’s beliefs depend on the strength of each disputant’s case. We find disputant responses to changes in the relative strength of their case generally follow comparative statics predictions. Further, we find that final offers …

Object Play In Tsimane Children: Implications For Sex-Specific Division Of Labour, Ava Moser, Michael D. Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Benjamin C. Trumble, Jonathan Stieglitz, Paul Hooper, Daniel Cummings, Adrian Jaeggi, Kathelijne Koops

ESI Publications

Sex-specific division of labour and the associated use of different subsistence techniques by males (e.g. hunting) and females (e.g. gathering) has played an important role in shaping human societies. Skills needed in adulthood are practiced in play during childhood and object play has been proposed to foster tool-use skills necessary for adult subsistence techniques. Here, we investigated sex differences in the ontogeny of object play in Tsimane children in Bolivia to understand its potential role in shaping gender-specific adult roles. We used observational data (>80,000 scan samples) from nine Tsimane communities collected between 2002 and 2007. We analysed age …

How Fair Workweek Laws Affect Labor Markets: A New York City Case Study, Joseph Pickens, Aaron Sojourner

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Learning About Stability Of Risk Preferences, Levon Barseghyan, Francesca Molinari, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Classical theories posit that risk preferences are stable across decision contexts. Two branches of empirical literature assess this claim. Structural approaches examine within-person consistency of model-based estimates of risk aversion, while “model-free” approaches examine within-person correlations of risky choices. We elucidate the latent structure underlying the model-free approach. Using this structure, we develop a new approach to assessing preference stability that has stronger testable implications, and we partially identify features of stability and heterogeneity of risk preferences. Our study illustrates a general principle: partial identification through minimal assumptions grounded in economic theory robustly bridges fully structural and model-free methods.