Some extensions to a stochastic model for technological forecasting

In this article we propose and analyze two stochastic models for technological forecasting. These models are extensions of the simple model proposed by the author in an earlier article.     

Remarks on Nash equilibria for games with additively coupled payoffs

Summary If the payoffs of a game are affine, then they are additively coupled. In this situation both the Weierstrass theorem and the Bauer maximum principle can be used to produce existence results for a Nash equilibrium, since each player is faced with an individual, independent optimization problem. We consider two instances in the literature where these simple observations immediately lead to substantial generalizations.I wish to thank Nicholas Yannelis for posing a question which led me to writing this note in its present form.     

An application of Ramsey theorem to stopping games

We prove that every two-player nonzero-sum deterministic stopping game with uniformly bounded payoffs admits an -equilibrium, for every >0. The proof uses Ramsey Theorem that states that for every coloring of a complete infinite graph by finitely many colors there is a complete infinite subgraph which is monochromatic.     

Distance to the pre-industrial technological frontier and economic development

This research explores the effects of distance to the pre-industrial technological frontiers on comparative economic development in the course of human history. It establishes theoretically and empirically that distance to the frontier had a persistent non-monotonic effect on a country’s pre-industrial economic development. In particular, advancing a novel measure of the travel time to the technological frontiers, the analysis establishes a robust persistent U-shaped relation between distance to the frontier and pre-industrial economic development across countries. Moreover, it demonstrates that countries, which throughout the last two millennia were relatively more distant from these frontiers, have higher contemporary levels of innovation and entrepreneurial activity, suggesting that distance from the frontier may have fostered the emergence of a culture conducive to innovation, knowledge creation, and entrepreneurship.     

Strategic planning I: The roles of technological forecasting

This series of papers deals with technological forecasting in strategic planning. In the first paper the author examines forecasting and planning as a process, identifying five roles of forecasting. (1) Identifying policy options: (2) Aiding strategy formulation: (3) Identifying program options: (4) Selecting programs for funding: and (5) Selecting oppurtunities for investment. The subsequent papers deal primarily with the first and third roles.     

A review of selected recent advances in technological forecasting

During the past decade, there have been some significant developments in technological forecasting methodology. This paper describes developments in environmental scanning, models, scenarios, Delphi, extrapolation, probabilistic forecasts, technology measurement and some chaos-like behavior in technological data. Some of these developments are refinements of earlier methodology, such as using computerized data mining (DM) for environmental scanning, which extends the power of earlier methods. Other methodology developments, such as the use of cellular automata and object-oriented simulation, represent new approaches to basic forecasting methods. Probabilistic forecasts were developed only within the past decade, but now appear ready for practical use. Other developments include the wide use of some methods, such as the massive national Delphi studies carried out in Japan, Korea, Germany and India. Other new developments include empirical tests of various trend extrapolation methods, to assist the forecaster in selecting the appropriate trend model for a specific case. Each of these developments is discussed in detail.     

The use of discounted least squares in technological forecasting

The use of growth curves in technological forecasting usually employs an equal weighting of all data points in the time series. This paper considers the benefits of weighting recent information more heavily through the utilization of discounted least squares. The method is used to model the growth of the percentage of households with CATV; discounting gives better results for short-term forecasting.     

New venture planning: The role of technological forecasting

A system for the analysis and planning of new ventures is developed which provides a structure for the application of logical, mathematical, and scientific procedures to decision problems which (1) involve a significant portion of an organization's resources, (2) have long term effects on a firm's future success, and (3) are characterized by uncertainty in many of the factors important to the decision. The system is based on a synthesis of various analytical techniques from the fields of technological forecasting, decision analysis, and system dynamics, and provides a general methodology for rank-ordering new venture candidates and determining the resource allocation level required for new venture portfolios designed to achieve long term growth objectives. The role played by technological forecasting in new venture planning and in the selection of engineering projects is discussed.     

Games of strategic complementarities: an application to Bayesian games

This paper provides an introduction to the theory of games of strategic complementarities, considers Bayesian games, and provides an application to global games. This paper is based on the Spanish Economic Review lecture given at the Simposio de Análisis Económico, Alicante, December 2001. Support from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (project SEJ2005-08263) is gratefully acknowledged.     

经济学界看经济社会与科学发展

党的"十八大"报告,凝聚了全党、全国人民的理论智慧,阐明了在新的国际国内形势下,如何坚持走中国特色社会主义道路的重大问题,描绘了全面建成小康社会、实现中华民族伟大复兴的宏伟前景。振奋人心、催人奋进。为了深刻领会"十八大"精神,进一步创新经济理论以促进中国经济发展,我们特邀国内部分专家、学者,畅谈自己的观点,以飨读者。     

On a family of data-based transformed models useful in forecasting technological substitutions

This paper examines, via real data, some well known models for technology substitution analysis. We propose a family of data-based transformed models that will include the models under examination as special cases. The basic thrust of the paper is the recognition that for technology substitution analysis, the observations are time series data and hence are not independent. Also, the functional form of the model should be determined by both theoretical considerations as well as the data on hand. This suggests that the traditional ordinary least squares procedure used in estimating the parameters and the resulting forecasting procedures are not adequate. The existing models examined here are Fisher–Pry, Gompertz, Weibull, and Normal. We stress the statistical aspects of the models and their relative merits in terms of predictive power. The criteria used for the purpose of comparison are the mean squared deviation and the mean absolute deviation of the predicted values compared with the actual observations.     

Approximation results for discontinuous games with an application to equilibrium refinement

We provide approximation results for Nash equilibria in possibly discontinuous games when payoffs and strategy sets are perturbed. We then prove existence results for a new “finitistic” infinite-game generalization of Selten’s (Int J Game Theory 4: 25–55, 1975) notion of perfection and study some of its properties. The existence results, which rely on the approximation theorems, relate existing notions of perfection to the new specification.     

Models of technological development and their relevance to advances in transportation

This study presents a general theory of technological development. In essence, two factors play an important role in the process of innovation. One is “learning” or acquisition of relevant production skills; the other is scale of operations of technology. The theory is applied to a variety of cases of innovation in the locomotive, tank ship, and aircraft technology over the course of time. It is suggested that the role of learning is far more important than hitherto recognized. In particular, development of new techniques is based on the rules of thumb rather than on the search for an objective optimum. The empirical results of the study further indicate that the process of learning in the development of transportation technology appears to have taken place largely in the capital-producing rather than in the capital-using sector. This confirms a conjecture of long-standing: at least in some sectors of the economy, all investment has the character of investment in R&D. Further, the role of learning is found to have been comparable to growth of scale. Thus, acquisition of production skills may well be an important alternative to large-scale technology. It is concluded that the process of technological change is appropriately viewed from the inside out rather than exclusively from the outside in.     

A theory of cooperation in games with an application to market socialism

Abstract

Economic theory has focused almost exclusively on how humans compete with each other in their economic activity, culminating in general equilibrium (Walras–Arrow–Debreu) and game theory (Cournot–Nash). Cooperation in economic activity is, however, important, and is virtually ignored. Because our models influence our view of the world, this theoretical lacuna biases economists’ interpretation of economic behavior. Here, I propose models that provide micro-foundations for how cooperation is decentralized by economic agents. It is incorrect, in particular, to view competition as decentralized and cooperation as organized only by central diktat. My approach is not to alter preferences, which is the strategy behavioral economists have adopted to model cooperation, but rather to alter the way that agents optimize. Whereas Nash optimizers view other players in the game as part of the environment (parameters), Kantian optimizers view them as part of action. When formalized, this approach resolves the two major failures of Nash optimization from a welfare viewpoint – the Pareto inefficiency of equilibria in common-pool resource problems (the tragedy of the commons) and the inefficiency of equilibria in public-good games (the free rider problem). An application to market socialism shows that the problems of efficiency and distribution can be completely separated: the dead-weight loss of taxation disappears.     

A boosting approach to forecasting gold and silver returns: economic and statistical forecast evaluation

We use a boosting algorithm to forecast the returns of gold and silver prices. We then study the implications of using different information criteria to terminate the boosting algorithm in terms of the statistical and economic performance of a forecasting model. Our findings demonstrate that information criteria that select parsimonious forecasting models perform better in statistical terms than information criteria that select relatively complex forecasting models, but this good performance does not necessarily survive an economic performance evaluation.     

The effects of technological development on the labor share of national income

In this article, we analyze the effects of increasing automation in production processes on the labor share of national income. For the analyses, we use the DSGE model which contains both the physical capital and the human capital accumulation equations. We improve the model by defining productivity variables for both investment-specific technology and educational activities. In all simulations of the model except base scenario, we give more positive shock to the investment-specific technology compared to the educational activities. In each new simulation, we augment the difference between the shocks to determine the effects of increasing automation on the labor share of national income. The results show that increasing the shock difference decreases the labor share of national income, and this confirms the decline in the labor share of national income in both developed and developing countries since the 1980s.