Reputation and imperfect information

A common observation in the informal literature of economics (and elsewhere) is that is multistage “games,” players may seek early in the game to acquire a reputation for being “tough” or “benevolent” or something else. But this phenomenon is not observed in some formal game-theoretic analyses of finite games, such as Selten's finitely repeated chain-store game or in the finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma. We reexamine Selten's model, adding to it a “small” amount of imperfect (or incomplete) information about players' payoffs, and we find that this addition is sufficient to give rise to the “reputation effect” that one intuitively expects.     

THE DETERMINATION OF OPTIMAL RATIONS FOR PIGS FED SEPARATED MILK AND GRAIN*

This paper demonstrates a procedure for determining economically optimal rations which avoids problems that arise in conventional analysis of experimental results. It consists of maximising a suitably constrained profit per unit time objective function, itself formed from functions obtained from pig fattening experiments under special Australian conditions. The relevant functions-for consumption of milk and wheat, time to slaughter and percentage lean meatare first demonstrated, followed by a brief discussion of results obtained. Specifcally, it is noted that optimal diets differ according to whether the criterion adopted is profit per pig or profit per pig per week, that dairy farmers fattening pigs should feed substantial quantities of grain, and that the optimal diets are very stable to changing prices. More generally, the procedure avoids the statistical difficulties of conventional analysis of experiments arising from the estimation of weight-gain functions based on actual quantities of food consumed.     

The effect of potential emigration on the optimal linear income tax

This paper amends a standard model of optimal linear income taxation to allow individuals to escape taxation by migrating. The income tax is used only to redistribute income in this model. It is found that, if individuals with low and high ability levels are prevented from migrating, then the optimal marginal tax and poll subsidy increase. But preventing migration at ability levels in some intermediate interval lowers the optimal marginal tax.     

Permissive Marketing The Effect of The AIDS Crisis on Marketing Practices and Messages

In 1981, in a Harvard Business Review feature, we described a marketing condition which we called "unmentionability" and, through a series of case studies, showed how it could frustrate the marketing of a wide range of products and services, despite the fact that many of them need to be actively marketed. AIDS and the massive anti-AIDS promotional campaigns that it spawned have dramaticaly accelerated the pace of change and created a new environment in which products, services, concepts and ideas that were previously regarded as unmentionable can now be marketed openly and explicitly. The marketing climate has changed profoundly and, although not always for the better, the added freedom and punch that the AIDS campaigns have engendered in the marketing world, have been eagerly accepted by those who feel it can enhance their marketing programmes.     

Twenty years of Hong Kong and Macao under Chinese rule: being absorbed under ‘one country,two systems’

This paper examines the implementation of ‘one country, two systems’ (1C2S) in the two former Western colonies, Hong Kong and Macao, as a policy innovation in managing inter-governmental relations of a large, diverse country like China. 1C2S embodies internal tensions because the Hong Kong and Chinese governments have multiple and often incompatible goals. After 20 years, these two special administrative regions (SARs) of China are gradually being absorbed.