Individual and Group Behavior in the Ultimatum Game: Are Groups More “Rational” Players?

This article reports two experiments that compared the standard ultimatum game played by individuals with the same game played by three-person groups. In the group treatment, the members of the allocating group conducted a brief, face-to-face discussion in order to decide, as a group, on a proposed division, whereas the members of recipient group held a discussion on whether to accept or reject the proposal. If the proposal was accepted, each group member received an equal share of his group's payoff (the pie in the group condition was three times that in the individual condition). In both experiments, groups offered less than individuals. But as indicated by the low rejection rate in both treatments, groups were also willing to accept less.     

Emission tax and optimal privatization in Cournot–Bertrand comparison

We compare a Cournot with a Bertrand duopoly in a differentiated mixed market when both emission tax and privatization policies are used together. We find that the optimal emission tax is always lower than the marginal environmental damage, and it is always lower under Cournot than under Bertrand. We also find that the optimal privatization is always a partial privatization, and it is always higher under Cournot than under Bertrand. The socially optimal combinations of emission tax and privatization will damage the environment most, but Cournot yields lower environmental damage and social welfare than those under Bertrand. Finally, we show that the environmental damage is non-monotone in the level of privatization under both Cournot and Bertrand competitions.     

When do Heuristics Matter in Global Capital Markets? The Case of the BRIC Acronym

ABSTRACT

Several recent publications have argued that the use of heuristics by financial investors can distort global capital flows, but scholars have paid little attention to the scope conditions that determine when heuristics become influential (and when they don’t). Building on work in economic sociology and behavioural finance we suggest that the degree to which investment heuristics can bias aggregate capital flows depends on the levels of uncertainty and self-referentiality that structure the environments under which investment decisions are being made. Applying these insights to the two principal global markets for corporate investment, we argue that the institutional structure of markets for short-term portfolio equity investments (PEI) is far more conducive to trigger the mimetic adoption of a specific heuristic than in markets for long-term foreign direct investments (FDI). To test this hypothesis, we leverage the high level of arbitrariness of the selection of Brazil, Russia, India and China into the BRIC acronym and empirically examine the impact of its remarkable rise to prominence among communities of financial investors in the mid-2000s on global capital flows to emerging economies. In line with the theoretical argument, we find robust evidence of a strong BRIC-bias in markets for PEI but not FDI.     

How Important Are Scale Effects for Growth When Knowledge Is a Public Good?

In this paper, by proposing an R&D accumulation law for an economy with an expanding number of firms, I seek to reconcile the following three facts: the positive relationship between the fraction of income allocated to R&D expenditure and growth; the positive relationship between the number of firms and total factor productivity growth; and knowledge as a non‐rival and non‐excludable good. There are scale effects because of the public nature of knowledge, but the economy also grows in the absence of population growth. I find that population growth explains one‐fifth of market income growth but only one‐sixteenth of efficient income growth.     

Changes in Global Trade Patterns and Women's Employment in Manufacturing, 1995–2011

This study investigates the feminization and defeminization trends in manufacturing employment in thirty countries from 1995 to 2011. Utilizing two separate methods, structural decomposition analysis (SDA) and factor content analysis (FCA), the study identifies the major industries and trade partners behind the structural shifts in trade that have induced changes in employment and thus in the rates of women’s employment. The findings highlight that, as a general trend, defeminization in manufacturing has persisted in the Global North, led by a negative trade impact in low-technology industries. In the Global South, feminization and defeminization trends are not as straightforward. Despite positive changes in women’s share of employment in medium-high- and high-technology industries, negative gender bias effects of trade changes are found particularly in high-technology industries, where occupations are notably gendered.     

When is There a Unique Equilibrium in Less Structured Bargaining?

We study two-person complete-information bargaining games in a non-cooperative setting. The alternating-offers model in Rubinstein (1982) is modified so that players negotiate each time about who will make the next proposal. Under this rule, there are multiple equilibria and there can be a prolonged delay. The multiplicity and the possibility of delay remain either when offers have to be made alternately (under Restriction A) or when the players cannot increase their demands over time (under Restriction N). Only when both of these restrictions are imposed does the immediate settlement predicted by Rubinstein's original model emerge as the unique equilibrium.
JEL Classification Number: C78.     

Do investors in Green Bond market pay a premium? Global evidence

We examine the pricing difference of Green Bonds (GB) and conventional bonds (CBs) in capital markets worldwide. Credit spread is used to observe whether investors would like to pay a premium for GBs over CBs. This study uses panel data regression with hybrid model to analyse daily observations over the period 2016 to 2017. We employ Option-Adjusted spread (OAS) to measure the credit spreads of bonds while controlling for bond specific, macroeconomic and global factors that influence the spread. With the hybrid model used in the panel data analysis, we were able to capture the fixed-effects of variables in a random effect model. We find that GBs are traded at a premium of 63 basis points (BPS), compared with a comparable corporate bond issue. We find that the green label provides issuers an incentive to raise funds through issuing GBs while providing investors an opportunity to diversify their investments returns. Our findings provide several implications to the major stakeholders driving the GB market to scale up the market to finance the required level of global green investment needs. We stress an urgent need to support the growth of the GB market to achieve sustainable development through mitigating climate change challenges.

Abbreviation GB: Green Bond; CB: Conventional Bond; YS: Yield Spread; BPS: Basis Points; OAS: Option-Adjusted Spread; PCSE: Panels Corrected Standard Errors; CPI: Consumer Price Index; GBPs: Green Bond Principles; CBS: Climate Bond Standard     

Cyclical growth in a Goodwin–Kalecki–Marx model

This paper presents a disequilibrium macrodynamic model that incorporates certain elements from Goodwin (the dynamics of the rate of employment and income distribution), Kalecki (an investment function independent of savings, and mark-up pricing in oligopolistic goods markets), and Marx (the reserve-army and reserve-army-creation effects). The model has a system of differential equations for the rate of utilization, profit share, and rate of employment. We show that there exist limit cycles that depend on the sizes of the reserve-army effect and reserve-army-creation effect. This implies that there exists a situation in which the economy experiences endogenous and perpetual growth cycles. Moreover, we show that if the stable long-run equilibrium corresponds to the profit-led growth regime, an increase in the bargaining power of workers increases the rate of unemployment; conversely, if the equilibrium corresponds to the wage-led growth-regime, an increase in the bargaining power of workers decreases the rate of unemployment.     

The Income–Temperature Relationship in a Cross-Section of Countries and its Implications for Predicting the Effects of Global Warming

Hotter countries are poorer on average. This paper attempts to separate the historical and contemporaneous components of this income–temperature relationship. Following ideas by Acemoglu et al. (Am Econ Rev 91(5):1369–1401, 2001), we use colonial mortality data to account for the historical role of temperature since colonial mortality was highly correlated with countries’ average temperatures. The remaining income–temperature gradient, after colonial mortality is accounted for, is most likely contemporaneous. This contemporaneous effect can be used to estimate the consequences of global warming. We predict that a 1°C temperature increase across all countries will cause a decrease of 3.8% in world GDP. This prediction is robust across functional forms and an alternative method for separating historical effects.     

Are there inherent biases in applying cost–benefit analysis?

This article extends discussions of potential biases that can exist in applying cost–benefit analysis. While there is extensive evidence that capture can result in stakeholder manipulation of inputs, there are also claims that the analysis is inherently theoretically bias in favour of over acceptance. The article shows that, contrary to these latter claims, treating projects in isolation is unlikely to produce such bias; indeed, it is as likely as not to lead to suboptimally low acceptance rates. The reason for excessive acceptance of projects therefore is largely due to institutional capture of the analysis for either self-interest or natural human over-optimism.     

“Core” and “Periphery” in a Monetary Union: A Macroeconomic Policy Game

We develop a dynamic game model of a two-country monetary union to study strategic interactions between macroeconomic policy makers, namely the central bank and governments. In this union, the governments of participating countries pursue national goals when deciding on fiscal policies, whereas the common central bank’s monetary policy aims at union-wide objective variables. The union considered is asymmetric, consisting of a core, with lower initial public debt, and a periphery, with higher initial public debt. For a symmetric demand shock, we derive numerical solutions of the dynamic game between the governments and the central bank using the OPTGAME algorithm. We show that mildly active cooperative countercyclical policies dominate noncooperative solutions and a scenario of no policy intervention. Optimal policies call for a brief expansionary action to bolster the effects on output and a return to a small fiscal primary surplus as soon as the crisis is over until the targeted level of public debt is reached.     

On a fallacy in the Kaldor–Hicks efficiency–equity analysis

This paper shows that implicit assumptions about the numeraire good in the Kaldor–Hicks efficiency–equity analysis involve a “same-yardstick” fallacy (a fallacy pointed out by Paul Samuelson in another context). These results have negative implications for cost-benefit analysis, the wealth-maximization approach to law and economics, and other parts of applied welfare economics—as well as for the whole vision of economics based on the “production and distribution of social wealth”.     

Disinflationary boom in a price–wage spiral model

This paper analyses the impact of the disinflation policy timing on the sign and the magnitude of the sacrifice ratio in a modified price and wage staggered model of Blanchard (1986). When wages are updated every four quarters and prices every two quarters, we show that a “cold-turkey” disinflation is associated to an output boom when the policy is implemented during the last period of life of the wage contract and a recession in the other quarters.     

Economies of scale in school operation–a reply

In addition to pointing out that Kumar (1983) omits Hough (1981) and Knight (1983) from its list of reference, Hough (1983) raises two issues of largely statistical nature. ^{1 1} Omissions are clearly inadvertant. The time lag between publication and the general availability makes ther reference list look more subjective than it actually is. These are:

1. the use of an average (AC) rather than a total (TC) cost curve as the correct statistical device for examining economies of scale, and

2. estimation problems arising from possible heteroscedasticity of the error term in the estimating relation.

Exactly the same issues are also raised in Hough (1981). Notwithstanding our earlier disclaimer (p. 324) that ‘no new grounds are broken on the methodological front’ as well as a clear mention of both problems (Footnotes 1 and 2), Hough is quite correct that the implications of these issues for our results were not spelled out. We take this opportunity to offer some clarifications with respect to the results in Kumar (1983).     

Restricted Hodrick–Prescott filtering in a state-space framework

The current paper extends previous results on Hodrick–Prescott (HP) filtering and shows that it is possible to implement the judgement-augmented, or restricted, HP filter within the state-space framework. The implementation entails augmenting the vector of measurements and altering one of the system matrices of the state-space model for the HP filter. Restrictions can thereby be incorporated in the HP filter, making, e.g., estimation more accessible. An application to US GDP gap estimation illustrates how the restricted filter could be usefully applied in an empirical macroeconomic setting.