Editorial comment : Our clientele

The problem considered is that of aiding large, technically unsophisticated groups to make quantitative policy decisions in real time in one sitting. Utility theory approaches, as well as Delphi and cross-impact matrices are discussed. The application of computer technology to such decision making situations is considered and the results of implementing such technology with several groups is discussed.     

Contests with spying: A comment

The subject of the following comment is a paper by Baik and Shogren which has been published in this journal (Vol. 11, No. 3 (1995) pp. 441–451). In their game-theoretic model, Baik and Shogren connect the informational states of the agents in a way which leads to inconsistencies.     

Equilibrium binding agreements: a comment

To construct their Equilibrium Binding Agreements, Ray and Vohra (J. Econ. Theory, 73 (1997) 30-78) define a concept of an equilibrium between coalitions and prove its existence for any coalition structure. We show that this result crucially depends on the quasi-concavity of the utility functions, which in turn depends on the type of mixed strategies used by the coalitions. When coalitions use uncorrelated mixed strategies utility functions may not be quasi-concave and an equilibrium may not exist. However, if coalitions use correlated strategies, an equilibrium always exist.     

Quasi-hyperbolic preferences and retirement: A comment

Diamond and Koszegi [Diamond, P. and Koszegi, B. (2003), “Quasi-Hyperbolic Preferences and Retirement,” Journal of Public Economics, 87: 1839–1972] have argued that quasi-hyperbolic discounting can cause dynamic inconsistency in planning when to retire as well as in consumption plans. This comment shows that in a simple model with such preferences, retirement plans are never time-inconsistent, as these same preferences keep savings too low for individuals to ever be able to afford unplanned early retirement. Although only a simple example is presented here to demonstrate the point, this insight suggests the application of ordiamond03's framework should be reconsidered. The model presented needs to be extended to find robust general conclusions.     

Mixed oligopoly and spatial agglomeration: a comment

Abstract.  This paper extends Matsushima and Matsumura (2003) by incorporating a large production cost difference between public and private firms in a quantity setting spatial mixed oligopoly. The public and private firms first choose their locations in a linear market and then compete in quantities. It is shown that for a significant inefficiency of the public firm, all firms (including both public and private firms) agglomerate at the market centre.     

Consumption taxes in monopolistic competition: a comment

We show that an ad valorem tax is better than an equal-revenue unit tax when consumers spend some fixed proportion of income on taxed goods, when firms use constant mark-up pricing, and entry and exit drive per-firm profit to zero. These key assumptions implies that ad valorem taxes are superior in oligopoly as well as monopolistic competition, showing that earlier results on taxes in monopolistic competition (Schröder in J Econ 83(3):281–292, 2004) are not due to the mode of competition, but rather are due to the functional forms used.     

Government size and macroeconomic stability: A comment

We show that in a standard, technology shock-driven one-sector real business cycle model, the stabilization effects of government fiscal policy depend crucially on how labor hours enter the household's period utility function and the associated labor-market behavior. In particular, as Galí [European Economic Review 38 (1994), 117-132] has shown, when the household utility is logarithmic in both consumption and leisure, income taxes are destabilizing and government purchases are stabilizing. However, the results are reversed when preferences are instead convex in hours worked. That is, income taxes are now stabilizing and public spending is destabilizing. Furthermore, under both preference specifications, the magnitude of cyclical fluctuations in output remains unchanged when the income tax rate and the share of government purchases in GDP are equal (including laissez-faire).