The distributional impact of large dams: Evidence from cropland productivity in Africa

We examine the distributional impact of large dams on cropland productivity in Africa. As our unit of analysis we use a hydrology based spatial breakdown of the continent that allows one to exactly define regions in terms of their upstream/downstream relationship at a highly disaggregated level. We then use satellite data to derive measures of cropland productivity within these areas. Our econometric analysis shows that while regions downstream benefit from large dams, no beneficial effects accrue to cropland within the vicinity. Moreover, we find that the productivity enhancing impact of upstream dams is dependent on the local climate. Overall our results suggest that upstream dams have quantitatively on average provided up to 12% of the minimum daily per capita amount of kilocalorie needs in downstream communities and increased agricultural production by 1%.     

OPPORTUNISTIC MATCHING IN THE HOUSING MARKET*

We construct a model of the housing market in which agents differ in their flow values while searching. Agents enter the market relaxed (with high flow values) but move to a desperate state (low flow values) at a Poisson rate if they have not already transacted. We characterize the equilibrium steady‐state matching pattern and the joint distribution of price and time to sale (for sellers). The expected price conditional on time to sale falls with time spent on the market, whereas the conditional variance of price first rises and then falls with time on the market.     

Structure,Clearinghouses and Symmetry

We introduce and justify a taxonomy for the structure of markets and minimal institutions which appear in constructing minimally complex trading structures to perform the functions of price formation, settlement and payments. Each structure is presented as a playable strategic market game and is examined for its efficiency, the number of degrees of freedom and the symmetry properties of the structure     

Estimating aggregate autoregressive processes when only macro data are available

The aggregation of individual random AR(1) models generally leads to an AR(∞$\infty$) process. We provide two consistent estimators of aggregate dynamics based on either a parametric regression or a minimum distance approach for use when only macro data are available. Notably, both estimators allow us to recover some moments of the cross-sectional distribution of the autoregressive parameter. Both estimators perform very well in our Monte-Carlo experiment, even with finite samples.     

The impact of award uncertainty on settlement negotiations

Legal disputes are often negotiated under the backdrop of an adjudicated award. While settlements are common, they are not universal. In this paper, we empirically explore how uncertainty in adjudicated awards impacts settlement negotiations. To do so, we develop an experimental design to test how increases in variance and positive skewness of the award distribution impact negotiations and settlement rates. We find increases in variance decrease settlement rates, while increases in skewness generally increases settlement rates. We also gather individual measures of risk aversion and prudence, and incorporate these measures into the analysis to test for heterogeneous treatment effects. Overall, our results suggest that highly variable adjudicated awards can contribute to the excess use of inefficient litigation, while more positively skewed awards can reduce the use of inefficient litigation.     

The Socio-scientific Construction of Global Climate Crisis

This article adapts and applies a securitisation framework to produce an analytical explanation for the heightened geopolitical status of climate change over the past decade, as demonstrated by the breakthrough Paris Agreement of 2015. Rather than speech acts invoking security, the focus of this analysis is on the socio-scientific discourse of global climate crisis that emerged in the several year period leading to the 2009 COP 15 conference in Copenhagen. Two types of experts—contributory and interactional—are identified as the essential and interdependent actors that engaged in ‘crisification’, a novel crisis-based perspective on political agenda setting, in which climate crisis served as a primary discursive device employed by prominent advocates of urgent action. Contributory experts, that is, authoritative climate scientists and their institutions, together with interactional experts—non-scientist social actors who appropriated and mediated scientific data and knowledge in framing climate change as a global crisis—constituted an extended epistemic community of climate advocates. Through an array of speech acts, this extended community effectively co-constructed a convincing climate crisis discourse that consisted of quantitative data artefacts based on CO₂ concentration and global mean temperature, and qualitative invocations of existential threat to human civilisation, which contributed to the ascent of climate change on the global political agenda. In proposing crisification as a complement to securitisation, the article offers a theoretical innovation that facilitates constructivist analysis of issues framed as crises, including geopolitical problems in certain non-military sectors where crisis is a favoured label for perceived threats to core values.     

First Versus Second Mover Advantage with Information Asymmetry about the Profitability of New Markets

Is it better to move first, or second—to innovate, or to imitate? We show that if one player's information about the profitability of new markets is only modestly superior, the possibility of foreclosing the market can lead to a first‐mover advantage. On the other hand, more extreme information superiority can reverse this, leading to a second‐mover advantage. Knowing more surely what is the best choice, the better‐informed player wants to delay to keep his information private and the less‐informed player wants to delay to learn. Because of this, more accurate information can actually lead to inefficiency by increasing the incentive to delay, and exogenous costs of delay can aid efficiency by neutralizing that strategic incentive. In fact, in some circumstances a player may purposely coarsen his information to deter imitation.     

When does incentive compensation motivate managerial behaviors? An experimental investigation of the fit between incentive compensation,executive core self-evaluation,and firm performance

We develop and test an integrative model that examines the fit between compensation schemes, executives' characteristics, and situational factors. We propose that a fit among all three factors is crucial to motivate desirable managerial behaviors. Using a specially designed management simulation, our study demonstrates that the effectiveness of incentive compensation to motivate managerial behaviors depends on executives' core self-evaluation and firm performance. Our results show that, relative to fixed salary compensation, executives with higher core self-evaluation respond to incentive compensation with greater perseverance, competitive strategy focus, ethical behavior, and strategic risk taking during organizational decline. However, these interaction effects are not present during organizational growth. Our theory and empirical evidence provide significant insights into the complex relationships among compensation schemes, executives' characteristics, firm performance, and managerial behaviors. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coordination and learning in games with strategic substitutes and complements

This paper experimentally compares the impact of the presence of strategic substitutes (GSS) and complements (GSC) on players’ ability to successfully play equilibrium strategies. By exploiting a simple property of the ordering on strategy spaces, our design allows us to isolate these effects by avoiding other confounding factors that are present in more complex settings, such as market games. We find that the presence of strategic complementarities significantly improves the rate of Nash play, but that this effect is driven mainly by early rounds of play. This suggests that GSS may be more difficult to learn initially, but that given sufficient time, the theoretically supported globally stable equilibrium offers a good prediction in both settings. We also show that increasing the degree of substitutability or complementarity does not significantly improve the rate of Nash play in either setting, which builds on the findings of previous studies.