Rent Seeking with Efforts and Bids

We introduce bids in a rent-seeking contest. Players compete for a prize. Apart from exerting lobbying efforts, they also submit a bid which is payable only if they win the prize. We show that our model has a unique Nash equilibrium in pure strategies, in which each active player submits the same bid, while the sum of all efforts equals that bid. In equilibrium there is underdissipation of rent.     

Telecom reforms in the EU: Prices and consumers' satisfaction

The paper shows the impact of privatization and liberalization on consumers in the telecommunication sector for 15 EU countries. Policy reforms are summarized by the OECD regulatory indicators (REGREF) that consider the extent of privatization, vertical disintegration, and market entry. After controlling for other country variables, first, a test of the impact of ownership and regulatory changes on consumer prices is given. In the second step, the Eurobarometer data on consumers' satisfaction about quality and prices of the telecommunication service are considered. The analysis confirms the importance of market regulation in reducing prices but minimizes the role played by privatization per se. Overall, the findings offer only mixed evidence, and somehow contradict, the hypothesis that all the reforms work in a similar way across the EU countries.     

Hooliganism and Demand for Football in Italy: Attendance and Counterviolence Policy Evaluation

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between stadium attendance, hooliganism and counter‐violence policy measures in Italian Serie A. In particular, this paper analyses the impact of counter‐hooliganism policies adopted in 2007 on the quantity of game tickets sold. The counter‐hooliganism measures, grounded on an entry card, namely a ‘fidelity card’, were designed to keep out hooligans from stadiums so favouring the attendance of either occasional spectators or uncommitted fans. According to our econometric investigation the expected substitution between committed fans and uncommitted fans did not take shape. In sum, the ‘fidelity card’ did not turn to be successful if evaluated on the average attendance perspective.     

Choice, preference and rationalizability in pareto’s theory of economic behavior

Pareto initiated the shift of economic theory from utility/preference to choice in order to fill a gap between theoretical and empirical economics. His suggestions for an empirically-oriented theory of choice were to be developed decades later in the literature on revealed preference and on the conditions of equivalence between preference-based and choice-based axiomatic structures. In the process, however, substantial departures from Pareto’s implicit design of the situation of choice were introduced. In this paper, the conditions for the rationalizability of choice are re-defined so that they fit the type of situation that Pareto had in mind. The result is that the main consistency axioms of standard choice theory have to give way to a different combination of axioms that concern decisiveness as well as consistency. (JEL:B13, D01, D11).     

THE ECONOMIC AND BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES OF ONLINE USER REVIEWS

Online user reviews have become an increasingly relevant informational tool during product search and adoption. Recent surveys have shown that consumers trust and rely on online reviews more than they do on website recommendations and experts opinions. As a new way of driving consumer purchasing intentions, online user reviews have therefore come under scrutiny by researchers. The objective of this paper is to offer an overview of the literature regarding the impact of online user reviews on economic indicators (e.g., sales, marketing strategies) and on consumer behavior. Furthermore, following the growing interest of academics and professionals alike on the topic, the present work provides an exploratory analysis of the consequences of online reviews on individual rating behavior – empirical regularities showed that online rating distributions tend to be concentrated on extreme values, possibly because of rating biases. As consumers and firms incorporate the heuristic cues from such distributions into their decision-making processes, biased ratings might lead to suboptimal choices. This overview presents established results (e.g., the impact of volume on product sales) and insights as issues for future research.     

Modeling node heterogeneity in latent space models for multidimensional networks

Multidimensional network data can have different levels of complexity, as nodes may be characterized by heterogeneous individual-specific features, which may vary across the networks. This article introduces a class of models for multidimensional network data, where different levels of heterogeneity within and between networks can be considered. The proposed framework is developed in the family of latent space models, and it aims to distinguish symmetric relations between the nodes and node-specific features. Model parameters are estimated via a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm. Simulated data and an application to a real example, on fruits import/export data, are used to illustrate and comment on the performance of the proposed models.     

Long waves in prices: new evidence from wavelet analysis

In this paper we apply wavelet analysis to study the dynamics of long-term movements in wholesale prices for the USA, the UK and France over the period 1791–2012. The application of wavelet analysis to long-term historical price series allows us to detect long waves in prices whose periodization is remarkably similar to those provided in the literature for the pre-World War II period. Moreover, we find evidence on the existence of long waves in prices also after World War II, a period in which long waves are generally difficult to detect because of the positive trend displayed by prices. The comparison between the long wave components extracted through wavelets and the Christiano–Fitzgerald band-pass filter suggests that wavelets provide a reliable and straightforward technique for analyzing long waves dynamics in time series exhibiting quite complex patterns such as historical data.     

Bidding for surplus in network allocation problems

In this paper we study non-cooperative foundations of network allocation rules. We focus on three allocation rules: the Myerson value, the position value and the component-wise egalitarian solution. For any of these three rules we provide a characterization based on component efficiency and some balanced contribution property. Additionally, we present three mechanisms whose equilibrium payoffs are well defined and coincide with the three rules under consideration if the underlying value function is monotonic. Non-monotonic value functions are shown to deal with allocation rules applied to monotonic covers. The mechanisms are inspired by the implementation of the Shapley value by Pérez-Castrillo and Wettstein [Bidding for the surplus: a non-cooperative approach to the Shapley value, J. Econ. Theory 100 (2) (2001) 274-294].     

What drives technology transitions? An integration of different approaches within transition studies

This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of transition drivers by reviewing four major strands of inquiry in transition studies: Multi Level Perspective (MLP); Strategic Niche Management (SNM); Transition Management (TM); Technological Innovation Systems (TIS). To the best of our knowledge, none of these contributions have so far provided a clear-cut classification of main drivers of transitions, as evidenced by the difficulty of practitioners in reaching goals as entrepreneurs, or policy makers in supporting economic growth. We believe that these theoretical streams share views relating the origin and drivers of transitions and that the analysis of the multi-level developments and systemic sub-processes by using the Integrative Propositional Analysis (IPA) allows for a more comprehensive identification of transition drivers. By mapping causal relationships within each perspective and by developing an integrative framework that takes in due account of overlaps between theories, we derived a new conceptual structure for the identification of transitions’ drivers.