Some economics of content protection

We are grateful to a perceptive referee for many constructive comments on an earlier version of this paper entitled The Economics of Content Protection: A Dual Approach. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Individual rights and organizational theory

Rights are very important concepts in everyday life. And they are especially important to participants in organizations. Yet, our theories of organization and management have largely ignored rights — stressing, instead, other concepts, such as goals, roles, etc. This article describes the historical significance of rights and their relevance in understanding social behavior. The advantages of a right-based organizational theory (versus traditional goal-based theories) are discussed.This article draws on the author's forthcoming book,A Social-Contract Theory of Organizations (University of Notre Dame Press, 1988).     

The welfare effects of import “subquotas” on heterogeneous product categories

In spite of its importance to policy makers, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the welfare effects of one aspect of trade policy-how to implement an import quota that applies to a heterogeneous product category. The government can impose a simple quota that applies indiscriminately to all goods within the product category or it can divide the quota among them with subquotas. In this paper, we analyze the welfare effects of subquotas. Under certain simplifying assumptions we find that a system of subquotas nearly always exists that provides greater welfare than a simple quota for a large country that retains quota rights or for a large or small country that gives quota rights away to foreigners. However, subquotas cannot increase the welfare of a small country that retains quota rights. The difference lies in the effect of imports on the home country's terms of trade.The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the US International Trade Commission. The authors are grateful for helpful comments on an earlier draft by anonymous referees.     

以非线性理论阐述反馈振荡器的频率与幅度的稳定性

本文首先对线性的频率稳定理论用于近似正弦反馈振荡器的线性频率稳定理论,进行了评论性的回顾。在这方面,解释所谓的线性振荡器是清楚的。其后,是应用描述函数法和判决方程法所得到新的表达式,去阐述反馈振荡器考虑成一个非线性网络时的振荡频率和振荡幅度的稳定性。     

Are we nice(r) to nice(r) people?—An experimental analysis

We experimentally investigate whether individuals can reliably detect cooperators (the nice(r) people) in an anonymous decision environment involving “connected games.” Participants can condition their choices in an asymmetric prisoners’ dilemma and a trust game on past individual (their partner’s donation share to a self-selected charity) and social (whether their partner belongs to a group with high or low average donations) information. Thus, the two measures of niceness are the individual donation share in the donation task, and the cooperativeness of one’s choice in the two games. We find that high donors achieve a higher-than-average expected payoff by cooperating predominantly with other high donors. Group affiliation proved to be irrelevant. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at . JEL Classification C91, C72, D3     

Gold,liquidity and secured loans in a multistage economy

A multistage economy with durables with finite and with unbounded lives is considered. The importance of the existence of both asset and rental markets is considered. It is shown that without rental markets efficiency may not be achieved and a stationary state that might exist with rental markets need not exist. The meaning of the existence of a 100% backed loan is considered. The roles of gold and land as stores of value and money are considered.Research supported in part by ONR Grant N00014-86-K-0220 and by NSF Grant No. SES-8812051.     

On the theory of cost sharing

This paper investigates efficiency and equitability issues given a cost sharing method in an economy with a public commodity. We study the concept of a -cost share equilibrium and examine the set of all equilibrium allocations. Finally, we devise a mechanism to implement -cost share equilibria as strong equilibria of an associated non-cooperative game.This paper was written while Shlomo Weber was visiting the University of Bonn. Financial support from theSonderforschungsbereich 303 is gratefully acknowledged. We also would like to thank Dieter Bös for valuable comments.     

Income inequality, democracy and growth reconsidered

Persson and Tabellini (Persson, T., Tabellini, G., 1992a. Growth, distribution and politics. Eur. Econ. Rev. 36, 593–602; Persson, T., Tabellini, G., 1992b. Growth, distribution and politics. In: Cukierman, A., Hercowitz, Z., Leiderman, L. (Eds.), Political Economy, Growth, and Business Cycles. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 3–22; Persson, T., Tabellini, G., 1994. Is inequality harmful for growth? Am. Econ. Rev. 84, 600–621) as well as Alesina and Rodrik (Alesina, A., Rodrik, D., 1992. Distribution, political conflict, and economic growth. In: Cukierman, A., Hercowitz, Z., Leiderman, L. (Eds.), Political Economy, Growth, and Business Cycles. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 23–50; Alesina, A., Rodrik, D., 1994. Distributive politics and economic growth, Q. J. Econ. 109, 465–490) have argued that income inequality reduces economic growth rates among democracies because it promotes distributional struggles. In this paper I question the supportive evidence for a number of reasons. Measures of income distribution and democracy are unreliable and permit only very tentative conclusions. Changes in data sources or recoding of some influential cases affect results. It is questionable whether equality effects on growth apply only within democracies, as a median voter interpretation of this relationship should make one expect. The general idea that distributional struggle hurts the growth prospects of nations, however, receives some empirical support.