Search results for "050206 economic theory"
showing 9 items of 9 documents
Interventions with Sticky Social Norms: A Critique
2021
Abstract We study the consequences of policy interventions when social norms are endogenous but costly to change. In our environment, a group faces a negative externality that it partially mitigates through incentives in the form of punishments. In this setting, policy interventions can have unexpected consequences. The most striking is that when the cost of bargaining is high, introducing a Pigouvian tax can increase output—yet in doing so increase welfare. An observer who saw that an increase in a Pigouvian tax raised output might wrongly conclude that this harmed welfare and that a larger tax increase would also raise output. This counter-intuitive impact on output is demonstrated theore…
Coordination games with asymmetric payoffs: An experimental study with intra-group communication
2020
Abstract Two alternative modes of reasoning in coordination games are prominently discussed in the literature: level-k thinking and team reasoning. In order to differentiate between the two modes of reasoning, we experimentally investigate payoff-asymmetric coordination games using an intra-group communication design that incentivizes subjects to explain the reasoning behind their decisions. We find that the reasoning process is significantly different between games. In payoff-symmetric games, team reasoning plays an important role for coordination. In payoff-asymmetric games, level-k reasoning results in frequent miscoordination. Our study clearly illustrates how small differences between …
Stable sharing rules and participation in pools of essential patents
2019
Abstract For pools of essential patents I study whether a pool's sharing rule is stable against arbitrage, so that the pool's members have no incentive to trade patents. I show that the only stable rule is the numeric proportional rule, which gives each member a share of the pool's profit equal to its share of the pool's patents. I study how the stable rule affects firms' incentives to participate, and I show that firms with few patents tend to remain outside the pool. I look at the trade off between stability and participation, and I show that as trade dilutes their shares, members prefer the stable rule. I consider individual licenses, stand-alone patents, integration, and R&D. The result…
Cumulative innovation, open source, and distance to frontier
2020
We develop a multistage game in which firms do cumulative research and development (R&D) to complete a lengthy process, and we study whether firms patent intermediate results or release them in Open Source. A patent holder obtains a larger reward in the market, but since in equilibrium it forecloses R&D, it remains alone to complete the process and so pays a larger cost than an Open Source firm. We have Open Source equilibria when R&D is highly complementary, R&D costs are large, and firms are sufficiently different and far from the frontier. We identify two market failures, in the forms of free riding and coordination failure, and we discuss public intervention.
The Invariant Distribution of Wealth and Employment Status in a Small Open Economy with Precautionary Savings
2019
Abstract We study optimal savings in continuous time with exogenous transitions between employment and unemployment as the only source of uncertainty in a small open economy. We prove the existence of an optimal consumption path. We exploit that the dynamics of consumption and wealth between jumps can be expressed as a Fuchsian system. We derive conditions under which an invariant joint distribution for the state variables , i.e., wealth and labour market status, exists and is unique. We also provide conditions under which the distribution of these variables converges to the invariant distribution. Our analysis relies on the notion of T-processes and applies results on the stability of Mark…
Unawareness and bankruptcy: A general equilibrium model
1998
International audience; We present a consistent pure-exchange general equilibrium model where agents may not be able to foresee all possible future contingencies. In this context, even with nominal assets and complete asset markets, an equilibrium may not exist without appropriate assumptions. Specific examples are provided. An existence result is proved under the main assumption that there are sufficiently many states that all the agents foresee. An intrinsic feature of the model is bankruptcy, which agents may involuntarily experience in the unforeseen states.
Excessive vs. insufficient entry in spatial models: When product design and market size matter
2020
Abstract Under spatial product differentiation and product design, we identify conditions for either excessive or insufficient firm entry. We extend previous settings, based on the Salop circular model, to analyze the combined role of positive demand elasticity and endogenous targeted product design. First, we show that, given the number of firms, the equilibrium level of targeted design is either excessive or insufficient, depending on demand elasticity. Second, with free entry, we show that the degree of targeted product design increases with the relative market size and decreases with demand elasticity. Based on these effects, the interplay between demand elasticity and market size yield…
Bounded Computational Capacity Equilibrium
2010
We study repeated games played by players with bounded computational power, where, in contrast to Abreu and Rubisntein (1988), the memory is costly. We prove a folk theorem: the limit set of equilibrium payoffs in mixed strategies, as the cost of memory goes to 0, includes the set of feasible and individually rational payoffs. This result stands in sharp contrast to Abreu and Rubisntein (1988), who proved that when memory is free, the set of equilibrium payoffs in repeated games played by players with bounded computational power is a strict subset of the set of feasible and individually rational payoffs. Our result emphasizes the role of memory cost and of mixing when players have bounded c…
A strategic approach for the discounted Shapley values
2014
The family of discounted Shapley values is analyzed for cooperative games in coalitional form. We consider the bargaining protocol of the alternating random proposer introduced in Hart and Mas-Colell (Econometrica 64:357–380, 1996). We demonstrate that the discounted Shapley values arise as the expected payoffs associated with the bargaining equilibria when a time discount factor is considered. In a second model, we replace the time cost with the probability that the game ends without agreements. This model also implements these values in transferable utility games, moreover, the model implements the \(\alpha \)-consistent values in the nontransferable utility setting.