The Bargaining–sales‐delegation Game

This article revisits the managerial delegation literature led by Vickers ( 1985 ), Fershtman and Judd ( 1987 ) and Sklivas ( 1987 ) by introducing a bargaining mechanism between owners and managers over managerial contracts. It shows that the degree of bargaining interacts with the extent of product differentiation in determining whether the sub‐game perfect Nash equilibrium is sales delegation or profit maximisation. In contrast with the classical result, no sales delegation emerges and the typical prisoner's dilemma of the managerial delegation literature is solved. This holds in both contexts of Cournot and Bertrand rivalries. The article also provides results for the more general cases with heterogeneous managerial bargaining power and endogenous decisions of the owners regarding the bargaining power of the manager that should be or not be hired in a firm. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managerial Delegation Theory Revisited

This article challenges the results of the ‘classical’ managerial delegation literature, where it is assumed that the weight of the managerial bonus only depends on the owner's will to maximise his own profits. By considering sales (S) (resp. relative profit (RP)) contracts, the received literature has found that (S,S) (resp. (RP,RP)) is the unique pure‐strategy sub‐game perfect Nash equilibrium in a game that contrasts S (resp. RP) with pure profit maximisation (PM). This article shows that none of the previous results may hold when the owner negotiates about managerial compensation with his manager. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Oligopoly models with different learning and production time scales

We propose a modelling approach to study Cournotian oligopolies of boundedly rational firms which continuously update production decisions on the basis of information collected periodically. The model consists of a system of differential equations with piecewise constant arguments, which can be recast into a system of difference equations. Considering different economic settings, we study the local stability of equilibrium, proving the destabilizing role of the time lag between two consecutive learning activities. We investigate some particular families of oligopolies showing the occurrence of both flip and Neimark–Sacker bifurcations, as well as the evidence of multistability with the coexistence between different attractors, occurring when oligopolies consisting of both technologically different and identical firms are studied.     

Bowling alone but tweeting together: the evolution of human interaction in the social networking era

The objective of this paper is to theoretically analyze how human interaction may evolve in a world characterized by the explosion of online networking and other Web-mediated ways of building and nurturing relationships. The analysis shows that online networking yields a storage mechanism through which any individual contribution—e.g. a blog post, a comment, or a photo—is stored within a particular network and ready for virtual access by each member who connects to the network. When someone provides feedback, for example by commenting on a note, or by replying to a message, the interaction is finalized. These interactions are asynchronous, i.e. they allow individuals to relate in different moments, whenever they have time to. When the social environment is poor of participation opportunities and/or the pressure on time increases (for example due to the need to increase the working time), the stock of information and ties stored in the Internet can help individuals to defend their sociability.     

Indeterminacy and nonlinear dynamics in an OLG growth model with endogenous labour supply and inherited tastes

This study analyses the dynamics of a two-dimensional overlapping generations economy with endogenous labour supply à la Reichlin (J Econ Theory 40(1):89–102, 1986) and aspirations. We show that the degree of nonlinearity of consumption externality in individual utility is responsible for the existence of either one steady state or two steady states. In addition, some interesting global dynamic properties, such as cyclical behaviour and/or global indeterminacy, emerge depending on the relative importance of aspirations in utility.     

Relational consumption and nonlinear dynamics in an overlapping generations model

In this paper, we show that incorporating the relational dimension into an otherwise standard OLG model and focusing on dynamic leisure externalities leads to dramatically different predictions. Here, we show that when the old perceive private and relational consumption as substitutable goods, a series of interesting dynamic outcomes—such as local indeterminacy, nonlinear phenomena (including chaotic dynamics) and even multiple equilibria with global indeterminacy—may arise. We also draw some welfare implications and relate them to the well-known “happiness paradox” arising within contemporary affluent societies.     

A note on symmetry breaking in a non linear marketing model

Decisions in Economics and Finance - In this paper, we consider the nonlinear discrete-time dynamic model proposed by Bischi and Baiardi (Chaos Solitons Fractals 79:145-156, 2015a). The model...     

Economic Growth,Technological Progress and Social Capital: The Inverted U Hypothesis

We set up a theoretical framework to analyse the role of economic growth and technological progress in the erosion of social capital. Under certain conditions on parameters, the relationship between technological progress and social capital can take the shape of an inverted U curve. Furthermore, we show the circumstances that allow the economy to follow trajectories where the stock of social capital grows endogenously and unboundedly.     

Effects of fixed and continuously distributed delays in a monopoly model with constant price elasticity

In this paper, we analyze the dynamics of a monopoly model with constant elasticity in which the monopolist faces a form of bounded rationality due to limited accessibility to information. We assume the firm adopts a gradient mechanism to adjust the output level, and we investigate how the introduction of fixed and continuously distributed delays within the resulting continuous-time system may affect the long-run dynamics. We find that the stability of the equilibrium depends on the weighting function adopted to model continuously distributed delays, and the convergence of the realized output toward the steady state is crucially affected by the choice of the delay type which, in turn, reflects the availability and the weight assigned to information. Indeed, depending on the assumptions on modeling delays, the equilibrium point may undergo a Hopf bifurcation after which a limit cycle arises.