Selection dynamics and adaptive behavior without much information

This paper uses the experimental method to investigate behavior in a coordination game when the information available to subjects is limited to their feasible choices and their experienced payoffs. In the experiment subjects converge to an absorbing state at rates that are orders of magnitude faster than reinforcement learning algorithms, but slower than under complete information. This state is very close to a mutual best response outcome. All cohorts converged to the market statistic predicted by the interior equilibrium regardless of the information conditions or the stability conditions. Eric Battalio programmed the graphical user interface. The National Science Foundation and Texas Advanced Research Program provided financial support. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the Texas Advanced Research Program.     

Beyond third party role: Disputes and managerial intervention

This article reviews the research findings on managerial third party intervention and the factors that affect role choice. It explores the implications of research findings and advocates using a political approach to investigate the ways that managers enter into disputes, both directly and indirectly, and through such roles as conflict orchestrators. It calls for reexamining the assumptions that underlie this research and for focusing on the process of defining conflicts, uncovering coalitions and networks of relationships, and linking third party intervention to the ideology that underlies organizational disputes.     

Is Africa integrating? Evidence from product markets

This paper presents a price-based assessment of product market integration in Africa using disaggregated retail prices for 91 products and 12 African cities from 1991 to 2008. We find evidence of substantial deviations from the law of one price ? product price differences between the cities averaged 76% over the period – a result that is consistent with the presence of large barriers to trade in the continent. Mean price differences across cities fell by close to a quarter over the period, but the decline was concentrated in the early 1990s with little progress subsequently, despite the regional trade policies implemented by the countries. Gravity-style estimates reveal that reductions in external tariffs and global trends towards price convergence in the early 1990s are the key contributors to the trend in price integration amongst the African cities.     

The Effect of Information Systems on Honesty in Managerial Reporting: A Behavioral Perspective*

This study examines the behavioral impact of an information system, and how that impact varies with the information system's precision, in an internal reporting environment. We propose that a manager's reporting decisions are affected by his or her trade‐off of the benefits of appearing honest against the benefits of misrepresentation. The information system affects the manager's trade‐off by improving the owner's ability to make an inference regarding the manager's level of honesty. Thus, to the extent that the manager perceives benefits to appearing honest, the presence of an information system can increase managerial honesty. As the information system becomes more precise, however, the manager must forgo greater benefits of misrepresentation in order to achieve the same appearance of honesty. For managers under a precise system, this will shift the trade‐off decision toward the benefits of misrepresentation and away from the benefits of appearing honest. Notably, in our experiment, the only benefit of appearing honest is an intrinsically motivated desire for social approval. We find that, although the existence of an information system increases managerial honesty, honesty is lower under a precise than under a coarse information system. We also compare profit earned by the owners in our experiment, which relies on a behavioral role of an information system, with the maximum profit theoretically possible given a contractual use of the information system. This comparison suggests that, unless the available information system is sufficiently precise, the owner will obtain greater profits by not contracting on its output, even if that output is fully contractible.