Twists and turns of triadic business relationship recovery

This study focuses on triadic business relationship recovery processes through a single case study. We address the question of what kind of process takes place when a business relationship on the verge of ending is recovered and what roles a third actor can play in the process. As a result, we model a process through which a triadic business relationship is recovered and attraction, trust, and commitment are restored.     

Coalition governments in a model of parliamentary democracy

We analyse a model of coalition government in a parliamentary democracy where parties care both for ideology and perks from office, and examine how the magnitude of this tradeoff affects the nature of coalitions that form. It is shown that equilibrium coalitions can be minimal winning, minority or surplus and they may be ideologically disconnected. The types of coalitions that emerge depend upon the relative importance of rents from office and the distribution of party ideologies. Further, there is a non-monotonic relationship between ideological connectedness of coalitions and rents from office.     

Suffrage,labour markets and coalitions in colonial Virginia

We study Virginia's suffrage from the early-17th century until the American Revolution using an analytical narrative and econometric analysis of unique data on franchise restrictions. First, we hold that suffrage changes reflected labour market dynamics. Indeed, Virginia's liberal institutions initially served to attract indentured servants from England who were needed in the labour-intensive tobacco farming but deteriorated once worker demand subsided and planters replaced white workers with slaves. Second, we argue that Virginia's suffrage was also the result of political bargaining influenced by shifting societal coalitions. We show that new politically influential coalitions of freemen and then of small and large slave-holding farmers emerged in the second half of the 17th and early-18th centuries, respectively. These coalitions were instrumental in reversing the earlier democratic institution\s. Our main contribution stems from integrating the labour markets and bargaining/coalitions arguments, thus proving a novel theoretical and empirical explanation for institutional change.     

Partitions and Coalitional Stability with Non-dominant and Dominant Members

The analysis presented in this paper applies coalitional game theory to an analysis of imperfectly competitive firms producing a homogeneous product. Coalitions consisting of equal partners and no capacity constraints tend to be stable. Grand coalitions consisting of unequal members tend to be unstable. In this case, an intra-coalitional utility transfer may cement the coalition, but the outcome tends to be the same as that in coalitions consisting of equal partners. Coalitions consisting of fewer, unequal members may be possible, however, even in the absence of intra-coalitional utility transfers. Finally, grand coalitions may be possible if subordinate members are capacity constrained.

Strong equilibrium in cost sharing connection games

We study network games in which each player wishes to connect his source and sink, and the cost of each edge is shared among its users either equally (in Fair Connection Games—FCG's) or arbitrarily (in General Connection Games—GCG's). We study the existence and quality of strong equilibria (SE)—strategy profiles from which no coalition can improve the cost of each of its members—in these settings. We show that SE always exist in the following games: (1) Single source and sink FCG's and GCG's. (2) Single source multiple sinks FCG's and GCG's on series parallel graphs. (3) Multi source and sink FCG's on extension parallel graphs. As for the quality of the SE, in any FCG with n players, the cost of any SE is bounded by H(n) (i.e., the harmonic sum), contrasted with the Θ(n) price of anarchy. For any GCG, any SE is optimal.     

Generalized coalitions and bargaining sets

We introduce new notions of bargaining set for mixed economies which rest on the idea of generalized coalitions (Aubin, 1979) to define objections and counter-objections. We show that the bargaining set defined through generalized coalitions coincides with competitive allocations under assumptions which are weak and natural in the mixed market literature. As a further result, we identify some additional properties that a generalized coalition must satisfy to object an allocation.     

Preferential trading arrangements as strategic positioning

We analyze a three-country model of trade negotiations in which countries can form bilateral free trade areas, bilateral customs unions or a trilateral preferential trading arrangement, and can continue negotiating after reaching an agreement. In contrast to the literature on multilateral bargaining, the set of agreements can form a (nonpartitional) network, while in contrast to the network literature, players can reach multilateral agreements. Patient enough countries only reach bilateral agreements if insiders gain more than outsiders, which allows them to manipulate the status quo in subsequent negotiations. However, a hub and spoke pattern may then emerge, and insiders then dissipate the advantages of strategic positioning. We also use variants on the model to explain why a US commitment not to bargain bilaterally sustained progress at GATT negotiations, and the rarity of open access preferential trading arrangements.     

Power relationships and coalitions in urban renewal and heritage conservation: The Nga Tsin Wai Village in Hong Kong

Urban renewal has been predominantly driven by themes of property-led and economic profit-driven redevelopment. The immense redevelopment pressures in dense urban cities have often posed unresolved conflicts in the conservation of historic quarters, particularly vernacular buildings with local significance instead of designated monuments with outstanding heritage value. This study examines the 20-year debate over the conservation and redevelopment of Nga Tsin Wai Old Village, one of the very few remaining villages in the urban area in Hong Kong. This case vividly demonstrates the contestations between the urban redevelopment and heritage conservation regimes and the multiple power relations that exist within each coalition. By combining the urban regime theory with the growth machine thesis, this study illustrates the complex interplay of power relations and struggles amongst different actors to determine their roles and interests, exercise of power and formation of coalitions. As such, the findings of this work improve our understanding of the sequential interrelationships amongst the power struggles of different actors, the redistribution of power, the formed coalitions and the supportive institutional arrangements in the redevelopment–conservation debate, thereby minimising the imbalanced power relations between these two discourses. This study also provides insights that can aid in the formulation of land use planning policies that can also be applied to other cities that are undergoing urban renewal.     

On Vind’s theorem for an economy with atoms and infinitely many commodities

We extend Vind’s classical theorem on the measure of blocking coalitions valid in finite dimensional atomless economies (see Vind (1972)), to include the possibility of infinitely many commodities as well as the presence of atoms. The commodity space is assumed to be an ordered Banach space which has possibly the empty positive cone. The lack of interior points is compensated by an additional assumption of a cone of arbitrage that allows us to use Lyapunov’s convexity theorem in its weak form. The measure space of agents involves both negligible and non negligible traders. The extension is proved in the general class of Aubin coalitions for which a suitable version of Grodal’s result (Grodal (1972)) is also formulated. Our results wish to point out the relevance of cone conditions dealing with blocking coalitions of arbitrary measure or weight.