This paper examines the factors underlying task discretion from an economist’s perspective. It argues that the key axis for understanding discretion is the trade-off between the positive effects of discretion on potential output per employee and the negative effects of greater leeway on work effort. In empirical analysis using matched employer-employee data it is shown that discretion is strong...

This paper provides a dialectical characterization of IAR and Brave semantics via argumentation dialogue. We propose a minimal argumentation dialogue system and investigate the relation between its outcome and these semantics. We show that Brave semantics corresponds to a dialogue where the opponent of the Brave-entailed query wins in any dialogue. We show also that IAR semantics corresponds to...

Traditional British adventure fiction often portrays citizens as noble, civilized, upright and brave colonial gentlemen. Having known the nature of colonization colonizers, Conrad subverts such discourse tries to rewrite traditional national identity. However, because he is a man who opposes colonialism, but supports imperialism racism, identity that remains elements related racism reflects his...

We analyze the impact of market share on advertising and pricing decisions by firms that sell to loyal, non-shopping customers and can advertise to shoppers through an information intermediary or “gatekeeper.” In equilibrium the firm with the smaller loyal market advertises more aggressively but prices less competitively than the firm with the larger loyal market, and there is no equilibrium in...

We present an agent-based computational economics (ACE) model of the wholesale "sh market in Marseille. Two of the stylized facts of that market are high loyalty of buyers to sellers, and persistent price dispersion, although it is every day the same population of sellers and buyers that meets in the same market hall. In our ACE model, sellers decide on quantities to supply, prices to ask, and ...

'HERE is a brave boy,' proclaimed George Hector,* when he brought Samuel Johnson into the world. From this moment and throughout most of his childhood, young Sam was harassed by a variety of afflictions that troubled his daily existence, but did not prevent him from eventually becoming one of England's outstanding literary figures. Samuel Johnson's adult illnesses and the history of his childho...