Effective property rights, conflict and growth

This paper shows how the interaction between conflict and growth can give rise to a nonmonotone relationship between property rights and social welfare. This interaction is illustrated in a model of endogenous growth in which equilibrium diversion of resources is the cost of securing effective property rights. A symmetric equilibrium allocation associated with more secure property rights and faster growth can be Pareto dominated by one associated with poorer property rights and slower growth. Faster growth can exacerbate the problem of diversion whenever property rights are sufficiently poor. These results call for caution before a society decides to pursue economic growth independently of the institutional structure of property rights. Furthermore, if this structure is inappropriate piecemeal reform might not be in the interest of society, and a substantial reform might be necessary if it is to be welfare-improving.     

Voting on meritocracy

This paper considers a setting where a resource such as education budget is to be distributed among agents. The latter differ in their ability to make use of the resource, and the issue is that of determining the allocation rule whereby the individual shares of the resource (may) depend on their relative efforts of obtaining it. The paper's focus is on endogenous determination, through voting, of the degree of meritocracy in the resource allocation system, which determines the marginal productivity of one's effort. It is found that a meritocratic system is expected to be supported by highly productive individuals and opposed by those with low productivity. When the decision making becomes less elitist and involves broader participation of population groups the support for meritocracy decreases.     

Contract renegotiation in a continuous state space

Summary. When players are unable to write complete state contingent contracts it is shown, within the context of a non-cooperative contracting-renegotiation game, that the only subgame perfect equilibrium allocations are those that correspond to the set of first-best allocations. Players are able to implement this set of allocations by signing an initial contract that is subsequently renegotiated in all states of the world. The contracting-renegotiation problem is complicated in an interesting way by assuming that the state space is continuous. The issue of the existence of an initial contract, that is subsequently renegotiated to the set of first-best allocations, must be resolved. Unlike Aghion, Dewatripont and Rey [1994], the results here do not require nor depend upon the comonotonicity of the objective functions. Received: January 27, 1995; revised version July 1, 1996     

On the convergence of reinforcement learning

This paper examines the convergence of payoffs and strategies in Erev and Roth's model of reinforcement learning. When all players use this rule it eliminates iteratively dominated strategies and in two-person constant-sum games average payoffs converge to the value of the game. Strategies converge in constant-sum games with unique equilibria if they are pure or if they are mixed and the game is 2×2. The long-run behaviour of the learning rule is governed by equations related to Maynard Smith's version of the replicator dynamic. Properties of the learning rule against general opponents are also studied.     

Testing separability of public consumption in household decisions

In this paper we propose a sequential strategy, based on the microeconomic approach of the demand theory, in order to test for separability between private and public consumption. The aim of the present work is to verify, using a conditional almost ideal demand system, whether the different components of public consumption exert conditioning effects on the allocative structure of private spending. The empirical estimation of the model and the separability tests are developed for both a demand system in five functional categories of private spending, and for a demand system in six categories, where the private expenditures on those goods and services which can also be offered by the public sector are enclosed in a single functional category. The results of the separability tests, obtained using UK data for the 1974–2000 period, show that public individual consumption plays an important role in modifying consumer choices, while public collective consumption does not affect private consumption behaviours. The relationships between the different components of private spending and public individual consumption are both of substitutability and complementarity; in particular, we find that public individual consumption and the corresponding private expenditures on ‘Health, education, recreation and social protection’ are complements.     

从"10+3"看东亚区域经济合作的方式

东亚区域合作面临许多难题，贯穿“东盟方式”的“10 3”合作是东亚目前的主导形式，但这一合作的诸多缺憾使东亚区域合作很难沿这一方向深入下去。2002年初，小泉纯一郎在新加坡描述了一个称为“东亚共同体”的设想，实际是鼓吹以双边自由贸易协定网而非区域经济一体化的方式来实现东亚的区域合作。的确，双边自由贸易协定网的方式不但符合东盟强调自立的合作原则，也迎合了外部特别是美国在这一地区的利益，易为各方接受，却从根本上堵住了东亚通往更具机制化合作的道路。笔者认为东亚区域合作的必然选择是大国协调为基础的区域经济一体化，这虽然需要一个艰难的调整过程，但却是在全球化条件下保障东亚各国利益的惟一选择。     

中小企业技术创新

21世纪是知识经济时代，企业要想保持长久的生命力，必须不断的进行技术创新。中小企业作为我国经济的一个组成部分，在国民经济的发展过程中起着重要作用。但随着中国加入WTO，中小企业面临着日益严峻而复杂的竞争局面，由于缺乏技术创新实力和潜力，使中小企业削弱了竞争力。就中小企业技术创新存在的问题进行分析，并提出解决的对策。     

Expected utility theory and the experiments

The experimental evidence against expected utility theo or unconvincing. When one modifies the experiments to mi tends to support traditional theory.Dewey H. Johnson Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, College of Business Administration, University of South Carolina. I am grateful for comments from seminar participants at the University of Melbourne, University of South Carolina, University of Stockholm, and the University of Western Ontario. John Hey provided a firm, but sympathetic, editorial hand.     

A mechanism implementing the proportional solution

We consider the problem of a commonly owned technology which transforms a single input into a single output. We are interested in implementing a social choice rule called theproportional solution. We introduce a mechanism which implements the proportional solution in Nash, strong (Nash) and undominated Nash equilibria. In the mechanism each agent announces only two numbers which can be interpreted as the total output and her share of the total input-output combination. This paper was originally titled "Doubly implementing the proportional solution." I would like to thank my advisor William Thomson for his detailed comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Jeffrey Banks and Sung-Whee Shin for their comments. Two anonymous referees and an editor’s comments improved this paper substantially.     

Optimal growth and cycles in overlapping generations models

Summary This paper investigates the dynamical properties of optimal paths in one-sector overlapping generations models without assuming that the utility function of the representative agent is separable. When the utility function is separable, the optimal growth paths monotonically converges toward the modified golden rule steady state. In the non-separable case, we show that the optimal growth path may be oscillating and optimal two-period cycles may exist. Applying these results to the model with altruism, we show that the condition of operative bequest is fully compatible with endogeneous fluctuations provided that the discount factor is close enough to one. All our results are illustrated using Cobb-Douglas utility and production functions.We thank C. Blackorby, J. Blot, P. Cartigny and one anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions which generally improved the exposition of the paper. We would also like to thank the participants of the Population and demography session of the European Economic Association 10th Annual Congress (Prague, The Czech Republic, September 1–4, 1995).