On the evolutionary selection of sets of Nash equilibria

It is well established for evolutionary dynamics in asymmetric games that a pure strategy combination is asymptotically stable if and only if it is a strict Nash equilibrium. We use an extension of the notion of a strict Nash equilibrium to sets of strategy combinations called ‘strict equilibrium set’ and show the following. For a large class of evolutionary dynamics, including all monotone regular selection dynamics, every asymptotically stable set of rest points that contains a pure strategy combination in each of its connected components is a strict equilibrium set. A converse statement holds for two-person games, for convex sets and for the standard replicator dynamic.     

Repeated games with one-memory

We study the extent to which equilibrium payoffs of discounted repeated games can be obtained by 1-memory strategies. We establish the following in games with perfect (rich) action spaces: First, when the players are sufficiently patient, the subgame perfect Folk Theorem holds with 1-memory. Second, for arbitrary level of discounting, all strictly enforceable subgame perfect equilibrium payoffs can be approximately supported with 1-memory if the number of players exceeds two. Furthermore, in this case all subgame perfect equilibrium payoffs can be approximately supported by an ε-equilibrium with 1-memory. In two-player games, the same set of results hold if an additional restriction is assumed: Players must have common punishments. Finally, to illustrate the role of our assumptions, we present robust examples of games in which there is a subgame perfect equilibrium payoff profile that cannot be obtained with 1-memory. Thus, our results are the best that can be hoped for.     

Rationalizable implementation

We consider the implementation of social choice functions under complete information in rationalizable strategies. A strict version of the monotonicity condition introduced by Maskin is necessary under the solution concept of rationalizability. Assuming the social choice function is responsive, i.e. in distinct states it selects distinct outcomes, we show that strict Maskin monotonicity is also sufficient under a mild “no worst alternative” condition. In particular, no economic condition is required. We discuss how our results extend when the social choice function is not responsive.     

How economic rewards affect cooperation reconsidered

Recent studies suggest that payoffs in cents, compared to dollars, produce less defection in a repeated prisoner’s dilemma game. We are unable to replicate these findings with conventional economic procedures or in a direct replication.     

The impact of trade costs on exports: An empirical modeling

Studies, which have discussed some of the important issues concerning the measurement of trade costs, have conceded that the literature is still in the early stages of understanding and measuring what the real costs are. It is in this context, decomposing trade costs into ‘natural’ costs, ‘behind the border’ costs, ‘explicit beyond the border’ costs, and ‘implicit beyond the border’ costs, this paper suggests a method to measure the impacts of these components on changes in exports between countries in the absence of complete information on all the components of trade costs in home and partner countries. Empirical measurement has been demonstrated using 1999 and 2004 trade data from Pakistan. The results show that Pakistan's export growth between 1999 and 2004 came mainly from the reduction in both ‘explicit and implicit beyond the border’ trade costs in partner countries.     

THE TENURE GAME: BUILDING UP ACADEMIC HABITS*

Why do some academics continue to be productive after receiving tenure? This paper answers this question by using a Stackelberg differential game between departments and scholars. We show that departments can set tenure rules and standards as incentives for scholars to accumulate academic habits. As a result, academic habits have a lasting positive impact on scholar's productivity, leading to higher productivity growth rates and higher productivity levels.     

Surplus extraction with rich type spaces

We characterize revenue maximizing mechanisms in auction settings with ‘rich’ type spaces, where bidders obtain information from sources other than their own valuation. By considering a relaxed problem, we provide an upper bound on revenue extraction that explicitly builds on the richness of the information structure. We provide a condition under which this upper bound is achieved and describe an optimal mechanism. Under this condition, we also show that the optimal revenue can be achieved through dominant strategy implementation.     

Voluntary formation of communities for the provision of public projects

In this paper we examine a group formation problem, where heterogeneous individuals partitioned themselves into communities, each choosing its own public project from the given space of feasible projects. The model is that of “horizontal product differentiation” where individuals display distinct preferences over the policy space. We consider the notion of “efficient” configuration that minimizes the total project-related costs and aggregate personalized costs of all individuals, and “sustainable” configurations, those are immune against breakaways by subgroups of individuals. Our main result is that, with a unidimensional project space and single-peaked personalized costs, every efficient partition is sustainable.     

Operators for the adjudication of conflicting claims

We consider the problem of allocating some amount of an infinitely divisible and homogeneous resource among agents having claims on this resource that cannot be jointly honored. A “rule” associates with each such problem a feasible division. Our goal is to uncover the structure of the space of rules. For that purpose, we study “operators” on the space, that is, mappings that associate to each rule another one. Duality, claims truncation, and attribution of minimal rights are the operators we consider. We first establish a number of results linking them. Then, we determine which properties of rules are preserved under each of these operators, and which are not.     

A new interpretation of known facts: The case of two-way causality between trading and volatility

Efficient price setting implies that news create volatility since traders flock to the market in order to re-optimise their portfolios. In due course of the price finding process volatility should decline once the asset price approaches its new, efficient level. In this note I present evidence that the reverse mechanism plays as well. Traders genuinely increase volatility challenging the presumption that more traders help to identify the efficient price more quickly.     

Rational expectations equilibria of economies with local interactions

We consider general economies in which rational agents interact locally. The local aspect of the interactions is designed to represent in a simple abstract way social interactions, that is, socioeconomic environments in which markets do not mediate all of agents’ choices, which might be in part determined, for instance, by family, peer group, or ethnic group effects. We study static as well as dynamic infinite horizon economies; we allow for economies with incomplete information, and we consider jointly global and local interactions, to integrate e.g., global externalities and markets with peer and group effects. We provide conditions under which such economies have rational expectations equilibria. We illustrate the effects of local interactions when agents are rational by studying in detail the equilibrium properties of a simple economy with quadratic preferences which captures, in turn, local preferences for conformity, habit persistence, and preferences for status or adherence to aggregate norms of behavior.     

On two competing mechanisms for priority-based allocation problems

We consider the priority-based allocation problem: there is a set of indivisible objects with multiple supplies (e.g., schools with seats) and a set of agents (e.g., students) with priorities over objects (e.g., proximity of residence area). We study two well-known and competing mechanisms. The agent-optimal stable mechanism (AOSM) allots objects via the deferred acceptance algorithm. The top trading cycles mechanism (TTCM) allots objects via Gale's top trading cycles algorithm. We show that the two mechanisms are equivalent, or TTCM is fair (i.e., respects agents’ priorities), or resource monotonic, or population monotonic, if and only if the priority structure is acyclic. Furthermore, if AOSM fails to be efficient (consistent) for a problem, TTCM also fails to be fair (consistent) for it. However, the converse is not necessarily true.     

A three-player dynamic majoritarian bargaining game

We analyze an infinitely repeated divide-the-dollar bargaining game with an endogenous reversion point. In each period a new dollar is divided among three legislators according to the proposal of a randomly recognized member—if a majority prefer so—or according to previous period's allocation otherwise. Although current existence theorems for Markovian equilibria do not apply for this dynamic game, we fully characterize a Markov equilibrium. The equilibrium is such that irrespective of the discount factor or the initial division of the dollar, the proposer eventually extracts the whole dollar in all periods. We also show that proposal strategies are weakly continuous in the status quo that equilibrium expected utility is not quasi-concave, and the correspondence of voters’ acceptance set (the set of allocations weakly preferred over the status quo) fails lower hemicontinuity.     

On general periodic time-varying bilinear processes

We study in this note the class of bilinear processes with periodic time-varying coefficients. We give necessary and sufficient conditions ensuring the existence of strict and second order stationary solutions (in periodic sense) and for the existence of higher order moments. The given conditions can be applied to periodic ARMA or periodic GARCH models. The central limit theorem and the law of iterated logarithm (LIL) for higher order sample moments are showed.     

OPTIMAL WEIGHT FOR REALIZED VARIANCE BASED ON INTERMITTENT HIGH‐FREQUENCY DATA*

Japanese stock markets have two types of breaks, overnight and lunch, during which no trading occurs, causing an inevitable increased variance in estimating daily volatility via a naive realized variance (RV). In order to perform a more stabilized estimation, we modify Hansen and Lunde's weighting technique. As an empirical study, we estimate optimal weights by using a particular approach for Japanese stock data listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and then compare the forecast performance of weighted and non‐weighted RV through an autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average model. The empirical result indicates that the appropriate use of the optimally weighted RV can lead to remarkably smaller estimation variance compared with the naive RV, in many series. Therefore a more accurate forecasting of daily volatility data is obtained. Finally, we perform a Monte Carlo simulation to support the empirical result.     

WHO’S THE BOSS? HOUSEHOLD DISTRIBUTION OF POWER IN A NON‐COOPERATIVE FRAMEWORK

When labour market participation influences bargaining power in a household, the male and the female labour supplies can be either positively or negatively related. If negatively related, possibilities include: ‘balance of power’, the complete dominance of one member, and circumstances where inequity persists with incomplete dominance. If effort levels are positively sloped, it is possible to have equilibrium at either high or low effort levels leading to equity. The effects of economic development and wage discrimination are also discussed.     

How well do individuals predict their future life satisfaction? Evidence from panel data following a nationwide exogenous shock

Abstract .  Using German panel data, we investigate how well individuals predict their own future life satisfaction. The context is the decade following the 1990 reunification of Germany, which provided a large shock to the future prospects of the inhabitants of the former East Germany. We find that the majority of East Germans significantly overestimated the satisfaction gains from reunification in the years immediately after transition, but by 1994 had converged on correct aggregate expectations. Some evidence of micro-heterogeneity in the prediction errors is found by age and education. For West Germans, we find some initial over-optimism, although less than for East Germans.     

On representative social capital

This paper analyzes the behavior of subjects randomly drawn from the Dutch population who reveal their capacity to provide and sustain social capital by their propensity to invest and reward investments in an economic experiment. We find that heterogeneity in behavior is characterized by several asymmetries—men, the young and elderly, and low educated individuals invest relatively less, but reward significantly more investments. The age effects are found to corroborate existing findings, whereas those of gender and education do not. Higher expected levels of investments by others are found to have a positive and significant effect on own investments. Finally, a laboratory experiment with student subjects is found to provide a lower bound of the population level of social capital.