Ecological aspects of structural change

Structural change in advanced industrialized countries has followed a very ambivalent course, with the resulting reductions in environmental stress in one area often being cancelled out by increases in another. What role has been played in this to date by industrial and economic policy? What options are open to policy-makers for the future?     

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WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE PHILOSOPHER-KING? THE LEADER'S ADDICTION TO POWER

This articles postulates the existence of a number of conscious and unconscious forces which make leaders reluctant to relinquish power. It is suggested that a major reason for the unwillingness to let go is the transferential effects of leadership. Both mirroring and idealizing transference reactions are discussed. In addition, there is the ageing factor which may contribute to the addictiveness of power, since ageing can evoke a strong need for compensatory strivings. the talionic principle - meaning in this case the conscious or unconscious fear that the loss of power will be followed by some form of retaliation for previous acts - may be another factor contributing to power's addictiveness. In this context the role of envy is emphasized. Finally, the existence of a ‘fear of nothingness’ is postulated, that is, a form of anxiety which leads to a need to defeat death by leaving some kind of legacy. It is suggested that holding onto power is linked to the fear that this legacy may be destroyed.     

Precommitment by central bank independence

The paper addresses the issue of central bank independence. The central argument is that government can precommit to the objective of price stability by providing a constitutional status of independence to the central bank. A sufficient set of institutional elements and the problem of incentive compatibility are discussed. It is argued that the solution is superior to a constitutional money rule as no rule can take adequately into account trend changes in output or velocity.     

Efficient organization of information processing

The paper examines the application of the concept of economic efficiency to organizational issues of collective information processing in decision making. Information processing is modeled in the framework of the dynamic parallel processing model of associative computation with an endogenous setup cost of the processors. The model is extended to include the specific features of collective information processing in the team of decision makers which may lead to an error in data analysis. In such a model, the conditions for efficient organization of information processing are defined and the architecture of the efficient structures is considered. We show that specific features of collective decision making procedures require a broader framework for judging organizational efficiency than has traditionally been adopted. In particular, and contrary to the results available in economic literature, we show that there is no unique architecture for efficient information processing structures, but a number of various efficient forms. The results indicate that technological progress resulting in faster data processing (ceteris paribus) will lead to more regular information processing structures. However, if the relative cost of the delay in data analysis increases significantly, less regular structures could be efficient. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Kreps-Wilson monopoly-entrant game and cautiously rationalizable sequential equilibria

In this paper the α and β characteristic functions are reviewed and a new concept, the credible threat function, is introduced following some tentative remarks on the credibility of threats.