Simple Flow Games

This paper considers simple flow situations. We introduce the minimum cut solution and characterize it in terms of one-person efficiency, consistency, and converse consistency. Furthermore, we give several relations between the core of a simple flow game and four other solution concepts: the minimum cut solution, the least core, the kernel, and the bargaining set.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C71.     

Simple Reputation Systems*

We develop a model of simple “reputation systems” that monitor and publish information about the behavior of sellers in a search market with asymmetric information. The reputations created influence the equilibrium search patterns of buyers and thus provide for market‐based “punishment” of bad behavior. We show that a reputation system that rewards honesty can enhance welfare by allowing good sellers to truthfully signal their type. However, the same system can be prone to strategic manipulation by sellers who always have low‐quality products. In that case, we show that an alternative system which assigns reputations based on product quality rather than honesty can be superior.     

Simple and practical efficiency lessons

The derivation of conditions necessary for Pareto efficient production and exchange is a lesson frequently showcased in microeconomic theory textbooks. Traditional delivery of this lesson is, however, limited in its scope of application and can be unnecessarily convoluted. The author shows that the universe of application is greatly expanded and a more transparent logic is embraced by noting that definition of Pareto efficiency directly implies the tangency of aggregate production/endowment and aggregate weakly preferred sets. This tangency condition can itself serve as a necessary condition for Pareto optima. For convex, but not necessarily differentiable, environments this tangency condition implies nonempty intersection of multi-valued marginal rates of substitution and transformation rather than outright identity.     

Simple complexity from imitation games

We give simple proofs of refinements of the complexity results of Gilboa and Zemel (1989), and we derive additional results of this sort. Our constructions employ imitation games, which are two person games in which both players have the same sets of pure strategies and the second player wishes to play the same pure strategy as the first player.     

Vetoes Overridable by Simple Majorities

Conventional wisdom has it that the absolute (purely negative) veto is ineffective when overridable by a simple majority. That is flatly false. The examples that prove this surprising fact are themselves surprisingly ordinary yet oddly resistant to direct observation. They reveal virtues of a neglected institutional design.JEL classification: D71, D72     

Simple Strategy-Proof Approximately Walrasian Mechanisms

This note provides an indirect analysis of the incentive properties of the Walrasian mechanism. It presents mechanisms under which truth-telling is a dominant strategy in finite exchange economies (in contrast to the Walrasian mechanism) and whose outcomes (generically) approximate Walrasian ones for large economies. These mechanisms provide new insights on the well-know trade-off between efficiency and incentive compatibility in finite economies. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D50, D71, D78.     

Simple Utility Functions with Giffen Demand

Simple utility functions with the Giffen property are presented: locally, the demand curve for a good is upward sloping. The utility functions represent continuous, monotone, convex preferences.     

Simple mechanisms and preferences for honesty

We consider full implementation in complete-information environments when agents have an arbitrarily small preference for honesty. We offer a condition called separable punishment and show that when it holds and there are at least two agents, any social choice function can be implemented by a simple mechanism in two rounds of iterated deletion of strictly dominated strategies.     

A Simple Selling and Buying Procedure

For the assignment game, we analyze the following mechanism. Sellers, simultaneously, fix their prices first. Then buyers, sequentially, decide which object to buy. Also, each buyer may report his or her indifferences (along with the previous buyers' indifferences) to the following buyer. The first phase determines the potential prices, while the second phase determines the actual matching. Reporting truthfully the indifferences is always a dominant strategy for the buyers. Moreover, when buyers state their true indifferences, the subgame perfect equilibria outcomes of the mechanism correspond to the maximum equilibrium price vector together with optimal matchings. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C78, D78.     

A Simple Two-Sector Model of Outsourcing

Outsourcing has become an increasingly contentious subject ever since N. Gregory Mankiw remarked in 2004 that outsourcing is just another way of doing international trade, and must be beneficial to the nation, including the workers. We construct a simple two-sector specific-factor model and explore the validity of Mankiw's remarks. We find his ideas are valid when the country does not produce any outsourced factor's work at home in that both the laborers and the nation benefit. But when some outsourced factor cum intermediate good is also produced at home, the nation still benefits but the workers may suffer.     

A Simple Model of Inefficient Institutions

This paper develops a simple model of economic and political institutions that lead to poor aggregate economic performance. In the model economy, groups with political power, the elite, choose policies to increase their income and to directly or indirectly transfer resources from the rest of society to themselves. The resulting equilibrium is generally inefficient because of three distinct mechanisms: (1) revenue extraction, (2) factor price manipulation and (3) political consolidation. In particular, the elite may pursue inefficient policies to extract revenue from other groups. They may do so to reduce the demand for factors coming from other groups in the economy, thus indirectly benefiting from changes in factor prices. Finally, they may try to impoverish other groups competing for political power. The elite's preferences over inefficient policies translate into inefficient economic institutions. The notable exception to this general picture emerges when long‐term investments are important, thus creating a commitment (holdup) problem, whereby equilibrium taxes and regulations are worse than the elite would like them to be from an ex ante point of view. In this case, economic institutions that provide additional security of property rights to other groups can be useful.     

Simple sequencing problems with interdependent costs

In this paper we analyze simple sequencing problems under incomplete information and interdependent costs. We prove the necessity of concave cost function for implementability of such problems. Implementability means that one can achieve aggregate cost minimization in ex-post equilibrium. We also show that simple sequencing problems are implementable if and only if the mechanism is a ‘generalized VCG mechanism.’ We then consider first best implementability, that is implementability with budget balancing transfer. We prove that for implementable n agent simple sequencing problems, with polynomial cost function of order (n−2) or less, one can achieve first best implementability. Finally, for the class of implementable simple sequencing problems with “sufficiently well behaved” cost function, this is the only first best class.     

A Simple Model of Contract Enforcement Institutions

We demonstrate that in highly productive economies contract enforcement institutions are endogenously established, and partnership contracts correct inefficient land allocation. In less productive economies, however, such institutions are not established, and partnership contracts are not formed. In economies with intermediate productivity levels, multiple Nash equilibria exist; that is, contract enforcement institutions are established in the high Nash equilibrium whereas they are not formed in the low Nash equilibrium. In this case, institutional quality can be diverse across economies. We also prove that improvement in institutional quality reduces within‐country inequality. All these outcomes are consistent with cross‐country observations.     

The Simple Analytics of Illicit Drug Policy

The impact of alternative drug policy objectives, specifically harm reduction/harm minimisation or prohibition, is unclear. The literature is confusing. This article conceptualises the causal connection between drug consumption and health harm (or reduced health status) then clarifies the implication of ‘drug related harm’. By applying some geometrical tools from economics, the choice of policy objective is analysed. The preferences of policy advocates are then incorporated. Policy advocates are conceived as arguing that decision‐makers and consumers should adopt their preferences between drugs and health harm. With this approach, the difference between alternative drug policies, in particular prohibition and harm minimisation/reduction, is demonstrated.     

实施会计委派制的可行性研究

建立有效的市场经济体制离不开真实可靠的会计信息,而会计信息的质量在很大程度上依赖于企业内部会计人员管理体制的运转效果,因此,改革旧的会计人员管理体制已成为当今企业深化改革的矛盾与焦点之一。会计人员委派制是一种全新的会计管理模式,是解决目前会计领域出现的一些问题的有效举措,本文将阐明会计委派制的积极作用和影响;然后在此基础上分析几个关系其切实可行的核心问题,并初步探讨解决方法。     

A Simple Model of Health Insurance Competition

This study investigates competition between health insurance companies under different financing regulations. We consider two alternatives advanced in recent German healthcare reform discussions: competition by contribution rates (health contributions) and by fees (health premia). We find that contribution rate competition yields lower company profits and higher consumer welfare than premia competition when switching between insurance companies is costly.     

Simple measures of endogenous free-riding in protectionist lobbies

Even though there is a well-known empirical and theoretical link between lobby and the free-rider problem, the existing literature only attributes its findings to the free-rider rather than the measurement of its extent. We develop broader theoretical micro-foundations for measuring free-riding and investigate the determinants of tariff rates from the perspective of corporate lobbying and free-riding. Our estimation result shows that the degree of free-riding not only varies across industries but is particularly high in larger industries indicating the underutilization of lobbying. The tariff rates under monopoly are about 8 times higher than under perfect competition in most industries suggesting that stakeholders should maintain higher industry protection levels through lobbying.