Preference profiles sustaining Arrow's theorem

Summary. Arrow's theorem is proved on a domain consisting of two types of preference profiles. Those in the first type are “almost unanimous": for every profile some alternative x is such that the preferences of any two individuals merely differ in the ranking of x, which is in one of the first three positions. Profiles of the second type are “appropriately heterogeneous”, with preferences similar to those generating the “paradox of voting”. Received: March 9, 2000; revised version: June 7, 2001     

On not doing due diligence: Bagus and Howden on free banking

In their recent article in the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Bagus and Howden (2010) present “quibbles” with fractional-reserve free banking. Specifically, they raise what they call “unaddressed issues” in this system, with a particular emphasis on Selgin (1988). We deem their arguments to be more substantial than “quibbles” and see them as part of a longstanding debate about fundamental aspects of monetary theory. We respond to their objections and attempt to specify how debate between the two sides might proceed more productively.     

Exchange and evolution

This paper offers an extension of the distinction of [Kohn, Cato Journal, 24:303–339 (2004)] between the two paradigms of modern economic theory—value and exchange—as derived from the generic–operant framework of [Dopfer and Potts, The general theory of economic evolution, Routledge, London, (2007)]. I argue that Austrian and evolutionary economics can be analytically unified about a general framework of rule coordination and change that I shall call the generic value paradigm. This is an analytic generalization of Kohn’s “exchange paradigm” that will allow us to redefine his conception of the “value paradigm” as the operational value paradigm in terms of the economics of known and fully exploited opportunities. The generic value paradigm, in turn, underpins the economics of the growth of knowledge and the evolution of the economic order as an open-system process due to the origination, adoption, and retention of novel generic rules. Austrian economics is then circumscribed as a special case of the more general “generic” analysis of the coordination and evolution of economic rules.      

Routines and incentives in group tasks*

The artificial context “Target the Two” has been used in experiments to explore some of the features of routinization and learning. Two agents must learn to coordinate their actions to achieve a common goal, without being allowed to use verbal communication. This article reports an experiment, in which we compare the degree of routinization and the performance of players in two treatments. Each treatment submits players to the same sequence of starting configurations, but differs in terms of the payoff function. In the first treatment (A), the payoff is based on the number of moves required to achieve the goal, whereas in the second treatment (B) the payoff depends on the time required for completion. We observe that (1) in treatment B subjects tend to play in a more “routinized” way and (2) treatment B reduces the time spent on play, but does not decrease the resources (the number of moves) used, relative to treatment A.     

Best response equivalence

Two games are best-response equivalent if they have the same best-response correspondence. We provide a characterization of when two games are best-response equivalent. The characterizations exploit a dual relationship between payoff differences and beliefs. Some “potential game” arguments [Games Econ. Behav. 14 (1996) 124] rely only on the property that potential games are best-response equivalent to identical interest games. Our results show that a large class of games are best-response equivalent to identical interest games, but are not potential games. Thus we show how some existing potential game arguments can be extended.     

On bubbling dynamics generated by a stochastic model of herd behavior

This paper suggests a class of stochastic collective learning processes exhibiting very irregular behavior. In particular, there are multimodal long run distributions. Some of these modes may vanish as the population size increases. This may be thought of as “bubbles” persistent for a finite range of population sizes but disappearing in the limit. The limit distribution proves to be a discontinuous function of parameters determining the learning process. This gives rise to another type of “bubbles”: limit outcomes corresponding to small perturbations of parameters are different. Since an agent's decision rule involves imitation of the majority choice in a random sample of other members of the population, the resulting collective dynamics exhibit “herding” or “epidemic” features. RID="*" ID="*" We are grateful to two anonymous referees for the comments and suggestions. Correspondence to: L. Gaio     

Corporate social responsibility and the ‘game of catallaxy’: the perspective of constitutional economics

The paper examines the issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the perspective of constitutional economics, focusing on the distinction between a political community’s constitutional choice of the rules of the “market game,” and the market players’ sub-constitutional choice of strategies within these rules. Three versions of CSR-demands are identified and discussed, a “soft,” a “hard”, and a “radical” version. The soft version is concerned with the issue of how “socially responsible” corporations ought to play the market game within existing rules. The hard version is about how the rules of the market ought to be changed in order to induce “socially responsible” corporate behavior. And the radical version questions the compatibility of CSR and the logic of the market game, calling in effect for adopting some alternative economic regime.

Benefit Transfer Equivalence Tests with Non-normal Distributions

Equivalence testing reverses traditional null and alternative hypotheses—welfare estimates are assumed different unless tests demonstrate that the difference is smaller than a specified tolerance limit. Within benefit transfer, researchers have universally used the “two one-sided t-test” (TOST) equivalence test, an approach that is invalid for non-normal welfare distributions. This paper proposes an alternative based on the difference between independent empirical distributions, denoted the “two one-sided convolutions” (TOSC) test. The TOSC permits valid inference for non-normal distributions. Empirical assessments show large divergences between TOST and TOSC p-values when distributions are non-normal—demonstrating the likelihood of erroneous inference under the TOST.     

The “hidden catch” in <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Invisible Hook</Emphasis>

In The Invisible Hook, Leeson argues that by devising a complex system of rules (called the “pirate code”) and procedures for electing their leaders, pirate societies created governance structures where the leaders were strong enough to “control the governed” but were not strong enough to break the constraints that bound them. There is, however, a “hidden catch” within The Invisible Hook. There are important differences between pirate crews and societies, between pirate captains and political leaders, and between the pirate code and constitutions. Moreover, understanding these differences is critical for understanding how criminal bands were able to accomplish a feat that still proves problematic for many societies.     

Economic Growth and (Re-)Distributive Policies in a Non-cooperative World

Many models show that redistribution is bad for growth. This paper argues that in a non-cooperative world optimizing, redistributing (“left-wing”) governments mimic non-redistributing (“right-wing”) policies for fear of capital loss if capital markets become highly integrated and the countries are technologically similar. “Left-right” competition leads to more redistribution and lower GDP growth than “left-left” competition. Efficiency differences allow for higher GDP growth and more redistribution than one's opponent. Irrespective of efficiency differences, however, “left-wing” governments have higher GDP growth when competing with other “left-wing” governments. The results may explain why one observes a positive correlation between redistribution and growth across countries, and why capital inflows and current account deficits may be good for relatively high growth.     

On the location of public bads: strategy-proofness under two-dimensional single-dipped preferences

In a model with finitely many agents who have single-dipped Euclidean preferences on a polytope in the Euclidean plane, a rule assigns to each profile of reported dips a point of the polytope. A point $x$ of the polytope is called single-best if there is a point $y$ of the polytope such that $x$ is the unique point of the polytope at maximal distance from $y$ . It is proved that if the polytope does not have either exactly two single-best points or exactly four single-best points which form the vertices of a rectangle, then any Pareto optimal and strategy-proof rule is dictatorial. If the polytope has exactly two single-best points, then there are non-dictatorial strategy-proof and Pareto optimal rules, which can be described by committee voting (simple games) between the two single-best points. This also holds if there are exactly four single-best points which form the vertices of a rectangle, but in that case, we limit ourselves to describing an example of such a rule. The framework under consideration models situations where public bads such as garbage dumping grounds or nuclear plants have to be located within a confined region.     

Different employment of capitals in vertically integrated sectors: Smith after the Austrians

The Austrian notion of stages of production and the related principle of the greater productivity of roundabout methods, plus the neo-Austrian notions of vertical integration and vertical division of labour, are utilized in this paper in an attempt to reconstruct Smith’s convoluted arguments on the different employment of capitals in chapter 5, book 2, of the Wealth of Nations. Smith’s arguments are first clarified in the light of the two concepts of capital (money capital and productive capital), of the two aspects of productive labour (living labour and dead labour) and of the two viewpoints (of an individual and of society) on which Smith’s theory is based. The results of this clarification are then used to prove that, independently of Smith’s own words but in consistency with his theory, the notions of “quantity” and “productivity” of productive labour have a “vertical”, as well as a “horizontal”, dimension so that they fit both the input–output scheme and the Austrian framework of time-consuming methods of production.     

The Costs of Implementing the Majority Principle: The Golden Voting Rule

In a context of constitutional choice of a voting rule, this paper presents an economic analysis of scoring rules that identifies the golden voting rule under the impartial culture assumption. This golden rule depends on the weights β and (1−β) assigned to two types of costs: the cost of majority decisiveness (‘tyranny’) and the cost of the ‘erosion’ in the majority principle. Our first main result establishes that in voting contexts where the number of voters n is typically considerably larger than the number of candidates k, the golden voting rule is the inverse plurality rule for almost any positive β. Irrespective of n and k, the golden voting rule is the inverse plurality rule if β ≥ 1/2 .. This hitherto almost unnoticed rule outperforms any other scoring rule in eliminating majority decisiveness. The golden voting rule is, however, the plurality rule, the most widely used voting rule that does not allow even the slightest ‘erosion’ in the majority principle, when β=0. Our second main result establishes that for sufficiently “small size” voting bodies, the set of potential golden rules consists at most of just three rules: the plurality rule, the Borda rule and the inverse plurality rule. On the one hand, this finding provides a new rationalization to the central role the former two rules play in practice and in the voting theory literature. On the other hand, it provides further support to the inverse plurality rule; not only that it is the golden rule in voting contexts, it also belongs, together with the plurality rule and the Borda method of counts, to the “exclusive” set of potential golden voting rules in small committees. We are indebted to Jim Buchanan, Amichai Glazer, Noa Nitzan, Ken Shepsle, and an anonymous referee for their useful comments.     

The economic effects of restrictions on government budget deficits: imperfect private credit markets

Summary. The present paper is an extension of Ghiglino and Shell [7] to the case of imperfect consumer credit markets. We show that with constraints on individual credit and only anonymous (i.e., non-personalized) lump-sum taxes, strong (or “global”) irrelevance of government budget deficits is not possible, and weak (or “local”) irrelevance can hold only in very special situations. This is in sharp contrast to the result for perfect credit markets. With credit constraints and anonymous consumption taxes, weak irrelevance holds if the number of tax instruments is sufficiently large and at least one consumer's credit constraint is not binding. This is an extension of the result for perfect credit markets. Received: August 28, 2001; revised version: March 25, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We thank Todd Keister, Bruce Smith, and two referees for helpful comments. Correspondence to: C. Ghiglino     

Identifying the dynamic home market effect in a three-country model

The home market effect (HME) is a distinguishing feature of the “new” trade theory. It is customarily defined as disproportionate positive causation from expenditure to production. Recently it has been argued that this dynamic definition of the HME is problematic in a multi-country framework, because it neglects third country effects. In this paper, we show that more than one exogenous parameter change is needed to overturn the dynamic HME. An isolated increase in the size of the home country will unambiguously lead to an over-proportional domestic industry expansion. We then illustrate with some specific scenario what type of third country effects can “swamp” the HME.      

Endogenous structural change and crisis in a multiple time-scales growth model

The slow and endogenous twist of economic macro-structure makes up an important evolutionary feature of capitalist economies, and may be at the root of structural crisis. In this line, a Goodwinian growth model with increasing returns and profit-sharing that tries to picture a simple scenario of the seventies crisis is considered. It is shown that the exhaustion of the Kaldor-Verdoorn “productivity law” can entail, in a nonlinear framework, a “catastrophic” bifurcation from a “high” to a “low” growth path. Slow/fast dynamical systems then allow one to formalize a multiple time-scales dynamics where the growth path is shaped by the structural framework in which it takes place, but has also a long -un feedback. Structural change and crisis appear as long term and endogenous outcomes.     

Mortality change,the uncertainty effect,and retirement

We examine the role of declining mortality in explaining the rise of retirement over the course of the twentieth century. We construct a model in which individuals make labor/leisure choices over their lifetimes subject to uncertainty about their dates of death. In an environment with high mortality, an individual who saves for retirement faces a high risk of dying before he can enjoy his planned leisure. In this case, the optimal plan is for people to work until they die. As mortality falls, however, it becomes optimal to plan, and save for, retirement. We analyze our model using two mathematical formulations of the survival function as well as data on actual changes in the US life table over the last century, and show that this “uncertainty effect” of declining mortality would have more than outweighed the “horizon effect” by which rising life expectancy would have led to later retirement.     

A modified yardstick competition mechanism

This paper expands Shleifer’s (Rand J Econ 16:319–327, 1985) theory of yardstick competition and develops a modified yardstick competition mechanism (MYC), where the yardstick employed consists of a tariff basket and total costs. This mechanism has a significant information advantage: the regulator “only” needs to observe total costs, prices and output of all firms. The MYC mechanism can ensure a socially optimal outcome when allowing for spatial and second degree price discrimination. We also introduce regulatory lags to the model. In addition, we compare the two approaches for the case of unobserved firm heterogeneity, and provide numerical estimations of the effects. The MYC mechanism fares better in the case of unobserved heterogeneity, and may thus be a useful extension of Shleifer’s yardstick mechanism.      

Existence of a competitive equilibrium in a one sector growth model with heterogeneous agents and irreversible investment

Summary. We prove existence of a competitive equilibrium in a version of a Ramsey (one sector) model in which agents are heterogeneous and gross investment is constrained to be non negative. We do so by converting the infinite-dimensional fixed point problem stated in terms of prices and commodities into a finite-dimensional Negishi problem involving individual weights in a social value function. This method allows us to obtain detailed results concerning the properties of competitive equilibria. Because of the simplicity of the techniques utilized our approach is amenable to be adapted by practitioners in analogous problems often studied in macroeconomics. Received: September 13, 2001; revised version: December 9, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We are grateful to Tapan Mitra for pointing out errors as well as making very valuable suggestions. Thanks are due to Raouf Boucekkine and Jorge Duran for additional helpful discussions. We also thank an anonymous referee for his/her helpful comments. The second author acknowledges the financial support of the Belgian Ministry of Scientific Research (Grant ARC 99/04-235 “Growth and incentive design”) and of the Belgian Federal Goverment (Grant PAI P5/10, “Equilibrium theory and optimization for public policy and industry regulation”). Correspondence to: C. Le Van