Consensus Among Economists—An Update

In this article, the authors explore consensus among economists on specific propositions based on a fall 2011 survey of American Economic Association members. Results are based on 568 responses and provide evidence of changes in opinion over time by including propositions from earlier studies in 2000 (Fuller and Geide-Stevenson 2003) and 1992 (Alston, Kearl, and Vaughan 1992). Propositions focus on microeconomics, macroeconomics, distributional and international topics, as well as pedagogy. Results indicate a movement toward an overall higher level of consensus, mainly because of a drop in the incidence of no consensus. Especially in the area of distributional propositions, economists display an increased concern with income inequality and potential effects on growth. In the area of macroeconomics, current opinions are more similar to those of the 1992 survey than the 2000 survey.     

Ist die EU-Agrarpolitik ihr Geld wert?

Expenditure for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been in the centre of recent policy debate in the preparation of the Financial Framework for the period 2014–2020. Expenditure has generally been considered as the necessary costs for the achievement of the CAP objectives. The authors of this article argue that expenditure is not equal to the economic costs of a policy. Moreover, they claim that the main part of CAP expenditure is not well targeted for the achievement of the CAP’s objectives. The bulk of expenditure is for direct payments tied to agricultural land and, hence, contributes little if anything to CAP’s objectives as laid down in the treaties of the European Union or officially articulated elsewhere.     

The Research Field “Modeling Business Information Systems”

The research field “Modeling business information systems” has a long tradition in the scientific discipline of Business and Information Systems Engineering (BISE). The present paper highlights research shaping the research field, discusses challenges impairing the development of the research field in the coming years, and outlines elements of a future research agenda.     

Do Entrepreneurs Need Firms? A Contribution to a Missing Chapter in Austrian Economics

The Review of Austrian Economics -     

Brown's original fictitious play

What modern game theorists describe as “fictitious play” is not the learning process George W. Brown defined in his 1951 paper. Brown's original version differs in a subtle detail, namely the order of belief updating. In this note we revive Brown's original fictitious play process and demonstrate that this seemingly innocent detail allows for an extremely simple and intuitive proof of convergence in an interesting and large class of games: nondegenerate ordinal potential games.     

The use of trading strategies by fund managers: some first survey evidence

A questionnaire survey has found that most fund managers rely on the strategies of buy-&-hold, momentum and contrarian trading. These strategies are typically applied mutually. Their use is rooted in the attributes and beliefs of the respective fund managers: buy-&-hold traders are fundamentally oriented, risk averse and are less (over)confident than others. Momentum traders appear as the least risk-averse professionals, going aggressively with the trend. Contrarian traders, however, show signs of overconfidence and peculiar risk aversion, both indicating difficulties in successful strategy implementation. The behavioural patterns revealed are not easily reconciled with efficient markets.