50-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE OF THE IARIW: THE EARLY YEARS

This paper, for the anniversary session on Milestones in Measurement, covers the years of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW) through the sixth General Conference in 1959. The first section of the paper describes the setting in which the Association was established and attempts to give a sense of the early years by identifying the people who were active in the Association and the topics that were being discussed. The second section identifies four milestones among the papers published in Income and Wealth , the volumes that brought together a selection of the papers from the General Conferences of this early period.     

Effects of warm-heartedness and reward distribution on negotiation

Research is needed to identify the conditions and dynamics by which foreign managers and local employees can negotiate their differences integratively. In an experiment with 120 participants in South China, employees with foreign managers who communicated warm-heartedness, compared to indifference, indicated that they had cooperative goals, a quality relationship, were confident in future collaboration, and concluded that their manager was an effective leader. Employees with foreign managers who structured mutual rather than independent or comparative rewards found their manager’s ideas reasonable and integrated them into their decisions. Results, especially if they can be replicated in field settings, suggest how foreign managers can negotiate effectively and develop their relationships with Chinese employees.     

A Proof of Calibration via Blackwell's Approachability Theorem

Over the past few years many proofs of the existence of calibration have been discovered. Each of the following provides a different algorithm and proof of convergence: D. Foster and R. Vohra (1991, Technical Report, University of Chicago), (1998, Biometrika85, 379–390), S. Hart (1995, personal communication), D. Fudenberg and D. Levine (1999, Games Econ. Behavior29, 104–130), and S. Hart and A. Mas-Colell (1997, Technical Report, Hebrew University). Does the literature really need one more? Probably not. But the algorithm proposed here has two virtues. First, it only randomizes between two forecasts that are very close to each other (either p or p + ε). In other words, the randomization only hides the last digit of the forecast. Second, it follows directly from Blackwell's approachability theorem, which shortens the proof substantially. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C70, C73, C53.