Evolutionary selection of ‘chivalrous’ conventions in coordination games without common expectations

We study an evolutionary game-theoretic model where players have to choose within a predetermined set of mixed strategies in a coordination game. Players are of two different kinds, male and female. No common expectations assumption is made; players tend therefore to adopt the strategy that yields larger than average expected payoffs for their kind. In this framework, every stable stationary point of the population dynamics can be interpreted as the emergence of a particular convention. A classification of the possible conventions is provided; conditions for their emergence are determined.     

The Interaction between the Central Bank and a Single Monopoly Union Revisited: Does Greater Monetary Policy Uncertainty Reduce Nominal Wages?

Previous papers modelling the interaction between the central bank and a single monopoly union demonstrated that greater monetary policy uncertainty reduces the union's nominal wage. This paper shows that this result does not hold in general, since it depends on peculiar specifications of the union's objective function. In particular, I show that greater monetary policy uncertainty raises the nominal wage whenever union members tend to be more sensitive to the risk of getting low real wages than to the risk of remaining unemployed. This conclusion appears consistent with the evidence showing that greater monetary authority's transparency reduces average inflation .     

Evolution of preferences and cross-country differences in time devoted to market work

I model the hypothesis that preferences evolve and permanent differences in individual attitudes towards work emerge between two countries characterized initially by identical preferences as a result of a period in which only one of the two countries is subject to regulations constraining labor supply, or as a by-product of different tax rates on labor income. Hence, the elimination of these regulations may not allow the economy thus deregulated to converge to the same hours of market work per person of the other economy, and the long-run differential in market work between economies subject to different tax rates is amplified.     

Some new mathematical methods in dynamic programming over infinite horizon

Two properties of the potentialsU(x, y) are studied. They are the acyclicity and the strong convexity. By mean of them, information on the dynamic behavior of the optimal choice functions is obtained. The previous results are then applied,via Dynamic Programming, to the models of optimization over an infinite horizon (discounted Ramsey models). Qualitative information on the dynamics in such models is derived and some new stability results are given.

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Riassunto Nel presente lavoro vengono proposte due proprietà dei potenzialiU(x, y): l'aciclicità e la convessità forte. Entrambe permettono di ottenere informazioni sul comportamento dinamico delle funzioni di scelta ottimale .La precedente teoria viene poi applicata, utilizzando la programmazione dinamica, al problema di dedurre informazioni qualitative sulle dinamiche nei modelli di ottimizzazione ad orizzonte infinito (modelli di Ramsey con utilità scontate). Si ottengono in questo modo alcuni nuovi risultati di stabilità delle soluzioni in questo modello.

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The research of the author was partially supported by a grant from the «Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione». A first version of this paper was delivered at the «VIII Convegno A.M.A. S.E.S., Modena 26–29 September 1984». In am grateful to E. Castagnoli and P. Mazzoleni for helpful suggestions. For any remaining errors, I am entirely responsible.     

Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Wirtschaftswissenschafter von heute

Ohne ZusammenfassungAus dem Italienischen übersetzt von Dr. Hans Emmer, Wien     

European Telecommunications Infrastructures

Since the liberalization of European telecommunications markets,regulators at European and national level have been relativelysuccessful in forcing down the price of access to the historicmonopolists' fixed network. This has led, however, to the developmentprimarily of ‘service competition’ in most of Europe,while infrastructure competition has been limited. As a consequence,investment levels are significantly lower than in the UnitedStates, particularly for the provision of broadband. Mobiletelephony has, however, diffused quickly in Europe comparedwith the United States, partly as a result of the successfulsecond-generation Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)standard adopted, and partly as a result of the charging systemsemployed. These developments have, however, been imperilledby the cost and delays associated with third-generation mobiletechnology. A new regime for regulating communications is currentlybeing developed in Europe. If properly applied, it will reduceregulatory intervention and promote investment and innovationin both fixed and mobile services, but there is a risk thatnational regulators may thwart this outcome.     

Government spending under non-separability: a theoretical analysis

We derive analytic implicit form conditions for the qualitative analysis of government spending multipliers and the optimal level of government spending in presence of non-separability between private and public components of aggregate demand. Using the simplest neo-classical flexible price model with no capital accumulation, we show that Edgeworth dependence is not a suitable condition to automatically assess the signs of the consumption and output multipliers, for which a more complex analysis must be carried out. We propose a detailed investigation of the form and the characteristics of the involved utility functions, which are crucial to such evaluation. We also show that if Edgeworth complementarity is strong enough, a public spending stimulus can raise at the same time private consumption and real activity. In order to reconcile our general framework with existing literature, we discuss recent examples of non-separable functional forms from the standpoint of our results, and argue that their consistency relies on specific assumptions about steady-state points.     

Citizen involvement in promoting sustainable mobility

This article proposes a methodology for promoting public involvement in the planning process for the promotion of sustainable mobility. The concept of the focus group (FG) is widened and a method based on holding larger groups defined as mega focus groups (MFG) is proposed. These MFG allow all sections of society to be represented in the participation process, thereby involving the population at a strategic level in subjects of general interest to society and later, holding smaller FGs on more specific subject matters (tactical level).The advantage of the larger MFG over the smaller FG is that they can obtain more information (between 40 and 60 people take part) from easily run meetings (similar to the FG). The MFG also provide a territorial representation of peoples’ opinions and serve as a mechanism for selecting the participants in the smaller focus groups. The information extracted from both the MFG and FG about people’s perceptions of sustainable mobility provides the background to the design of pilot surveys on urban mobility. For a better understanding of the development of this method and its possible applications in any town or city the article includes its practical application in the medium sized city of Santander (Northern Spain).