Search results for "economic theory"

Informational interactions and the future of cities

1998

Present-day city growth is chiefly the result of new tertiary activities such as financial and producer services, R&D, or business administration. It seems that these activities need to be more spatially concentrated than traditional manufacturing activities. These new trends affect both the structure of cities and the structure of city systems. The specific nature of the new activities concentrated in city centers makes them information intensive. These activities consume human capital, knowledge and hightech capital, which are all rapidly changing inputs; they are based on complex decisionmakingprocesses; this renders them highly information-dependent. Inasmuch as these activities are the…

Globalization and Trade: An Unfortunate Tangle

2019

Globalization disrupted the seemingly solid construction emerged in the aftermath of WW II, called the international trade system. For over fifty years, the system grew constantly thanks to the increasing number of countries that joint it as well as to its ubiquitously-accepted rules. For better and for worse the system has worked according to traditional theory principles, whose core credo was that all participating countries would gain more if engaged in trade than if in autarchy. Globalization has muddied the waters. The contemporary order in which multinational companies make the rules has made these predictions look elusive. One serious implication is today’s unorthodox approach of tra…

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 …

True prices, latent prices and the Ghosh model : some inconsistencies

2001

Beside the traditional Leontief demand-driven model, there is the Ghosh supply-driven model. This paper explores the typology of the possible models: demand driven models versus supply driven models, true prices versus latent (or index) prices, coefficients in physical terms versus coefficients in value. This demonstrates that the supply-driven model offers results of limited interest, being incapable to separate quantities and prices; and it is only when a very strange hypothesis is chosen -- demand prices, controlled by the buyer -- that the supply-driven model gives an interesting result with a separation between quantities and prices in the solution, becoming the dual of the Leontief mo…

Variable convexity and peripheral core in an exchange economy

1988

La notion de coopération (ICHIISHI [1981;1982], SCARF [1967;1971;1973], SHAPLEY [1973], SCHLEICHER [1979]), qui passe par la formation d’une coalition, donne naissance à ce que l’on appelle parfois des super-joueurs, c’est-à-dire des groupes de joueurs qui vont finalement se comporter comme des joueurs uniques; autrement dit, la rationalité de ces super-joueurs est identique, dans le principe, à celle d’un agent ésseulé en situation de conflit. Ceci signifie, en fait, que les joueurs sont en mesure d’abdiquer leur pouvoir intrinsèque de décision au profit d’une institution collective provenant d’une coalition à laquelle ils adhèrent. Ce pourquoi, ces êtres intermédiaires sont des entités th…

Research and development expenditure in France : an analysis by sector

1996

La taille des entreprises a toujours été considérée comme une variable déterminante dans l'explication de leurs stratégies (stratégie de concentration ou stratégie d'innovation). Ce travail se propose d'analyser la relation évoquée par J. Schumpeter entre la taille des entreprises et le montant des dépenses en recherche-développement. Tout en suivant la méthodologie utilisée en Economie Industrielle, nous avons d'abord conduit une analyse exploratoire sur cette relation. Cette étude, réalisée au niveau branche, montre que la taille (mesurée par le nombre de salariés, la production effective ou la valeur ajoutée) exerce une influence positive sur les dépenses en recherche-développement (mesu…

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…

Models and mecanisms in economics : attempt to clarify their relationships

2000

The article is an attempt to clarify the relationship between economic models and mechanisms. The latter refer to causal processes and interactions. What role do they play in models? One must distinguish between models as non-linguistic constructs and models in the more usual sense of formal systems of definitions and mathematical relations. Models in the second sense are interpreted as purporting to characterise or describe in part models in the first sense. Thus the fact that there is no explicit reference to process-based mechanisms in many formal models does not mean that these mechanisms do not play an essential role in the non-linguistic models that these formal models describe in an …

Wealth Creation and Science Research : Science Research, the root of wealth in our Knowledge Society, is endangered

Two vastly dierent historical stages in wealth creation are the traditional one based on agriculture during past millennia, and the one based on science research in our present globalizing knowledge society. The dierences happen to be so considerable, and the emergence of the second stage relatively so recent, that the awareness of the full range of consequences regarding the proper pursuit of science research, which is the root of wealth in our knowledge society, is missing to an extent that may, even in the medium term, seriously endanger the sustainability of modern human society. Here is presented a brief account of some of such dangers, following which a parable, entitled "Is it a mere…

Understanding the shortcomings of commodity-based technology in input-output models: an economic-circuit approach

2004

International audience; The Make-Use Model serves as a basis for most national accounting systems as the System of National Accounts (SNA) and is acknowledged as the most suitable model for interregional analysis. Two hypotheses are traditionally made featuring either industry-based technologies (IBT) or commodity-based technologies (CBT). While industry-based technologies can be easily interpreted in terms of a demand-driven economic circuit, it will be shown that: (1) commodity-based technologies cannot be interpreted as a demand-driven economic circuit because this involves computing the inverse of a matrix (the matrix of industry output proportions), which is either impossible or genera…