Competition,strategic delegation and delay in technology adoption

This paper examines how strategic managerial delegation affects firms' timing of adoption of a new technology under different modes of product market competition. It demonstrates that strategic delegation has differential impacts on adoption dates under Cournot and Bertrand competitions. Strategic delegation with ‘own-performance’-based incentive schemes always leads to early adoption in markets with Bertrand competition compared to that under no-delegation, but not necessarily so in markets with Cournot competition. It also shows that under strategic delegation with ‘own-performance’-based incentive schemes, adoption occurs earlier (later) in markets with Cournot competition than in markets with Bertrand competition, if the degree of product differentiation is high (low). In contrast, under strategic delegation with ‘relative-performance’-based incentive schemes, adoption dates do not differ across markets with different modes of competition. It also analyses implications of firms' choice over types of managerial incentive schemes on the speed of diffusion of new technology.     

Efficiency in coalition games with externalities

A natural extension of superadditivity is not sufficient to imply that the grand coalition is efficient when externalities are present. We provide a condition, analogous to convexity, that is sufficient for the grand coalition to be efficient and show that this also implies that the (appropriately defined) core is nonempty. Moreover, we propose a mechanism which implements the most efficient partition for all coalition formation games and characterizes the resulting payoff division.     

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     

Constitutional coordination in unstable party systems: the Brazilian constitution of 1988

Constitutional assemblies are a common feature of many democratic transitions. However, the goal of coordinating constitutional choice would seem nearly impossible when assemblies are comprised of highly fragmented and volatile political parties. Building on Knight’s bargaining model, this article argues that the main challenge to coordination in unstable party systems is the procedural disequilibrium that results from incomplete information over breakdown payoffs. The likelihood of compromise in such circumstances is a function of the ideologies that frame constitutional choice and inform coalition-building. Thus, unstable party systems are not chaotic, although they may be deeply conflict-laden. These issues are illustrated empirically via the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, which demonstrates the possibilities for a stable constitutional order emerging from a fragmented and volatile party system.

网络衔接障碍与消解——基于古诺均衡模型的现代交通产业关系研究

在我国构建以高铁为主导的新型综合交通运输体系进程中,高铁、航空与公路客运等交通网络之间的换乘衔接问题成为提高交通系统整体效率的制约点,也是影响交通服务消费者效用的主要因素。该问题一直未能获得行业管理者与相关企业重视,造成资源配置浪费。本文以价格加成的形式来量化消费者换乘障碍,借助博弈模型分析不同的交通运营商对解决换乘障碍问题的内在激励。从政府规制的角度提出鼓励运营商主动进行投资以减少换乘障碍的激励相容设计方案,并指出规制者应适当给予补贴作为引导资金,在交通基础设施增量受限的条件下盘活存量以促进综合运输网络的融合发展。     

Ex ante contracting with endogenously determined communication plans

Summary. In this paper we introduce a new model of ex ante contracting for economies with asymmetric information to examine endogenously determined communication plans for information sharing in the interim stage. In contrast to the models used in previous research, in the present model agents negotiate not only on a contract of state contingent allocations but also on a communication plan, a set of rules describing how agents will reveal part of their private information at the interim stage to execute the trade contracts. We prove a result about the nested structure of the set of allocations implementable by various communication plans and establish the existence of core strategies for this cooperative game under various regularity conditions. Received: 4 March 1998; revised version: 17 September 1999     

A Common Pool Resource Game with Sequential Decisions and Experimental Evidence

We describe a common pool resource game in which players choose how much of the stock to extract in a sequential manner. There are two choices and one represents taking a larger proportion of the stock than the other. After a player makes a choice, the remaining stock grows at a constant rate. We consider a game with a finite number of alternating moves. It is shown that changes in the larger proportion of the stock that the players are allowed to take and the growth rate affect equilibrium, but have little effect on behavior in the laboratory. In addition to observing more cooperation than predicted, we observe that parameters that are strategically irrelevant affect behavior. The results of this research might help policy makers in developing adequate policies to prevent overexploitation of some natural renewable resources.     

Supporting others and the evolution of influence

In this paper we study environments in which agents can transfer influence to others by supporting them. When planning whom to support, they should take into account the future effect of this, since the receiving agent might use this influence to support others in the future. We show that in the presence of a finite horizon there is an essentially unique optimal support behavior which can be characterized in terms of associated marginal value functions. The analysis of these marginal value functions allows us to derive qualitative properties of optimal support strategies under different specific environments and to explicitly compute the optimal support behavior in some numerical examples. We also investigate the case of an infinite horizon. Examples show that multiple equilibria may appear in this setting, some of which sustaining a degree of cooperation that would not be possible under a finite horizon.     

International monetary policy cooperation in economies with centralized wage setting

We consider a standard two-country monetary policy game with fixed nominal wage contracts. The policy regime is either non-cooperative or cooperative. We extend conventional analyses by deriving the natural rate of employment endogenously through monopoly union decision-making. As unions attempt to affect the real exchange rate, wages are set inefficiently high. Such attempts are shown to be strongest under monetary cooperation. Therefore, in comparison with non-cooperation, employment is lowest, and, in effect, consumer price inflation is highest, under monetary cooperation, i.e., international monetary cooperation is disadvantageous.