Various experimental studies have shown that the availability of a punishment option can increase the prevalence of cooperative behaviour in repeated social dilemmas. A punishment option should only matter if it is a credible threat. We investigate if the degree of credibility depends on standard strategic equilibrium considerations (i.e. SPNE or NE logic) or stems from a non-strategic motivati...

In a small open economy with heterogeneous firms, in which tariffs determine the mass of active firms, free trade optimality depends positively on the level of firm heterogeneity and negatively on transportation/adoption costs. The benefits from temporary protection depend on the level of backwardness: for a given mass of backward firms, the relative gains from protection increase with their qu...

The paper studies the optimal distribution of business and residential land in a circular city. Once the optimum is characterized, we analyze the effect of changes in commuting costs and externality parameters. We also propose policies like labor subsidies, land taxes and zoning restrictions that can implement the efficient allocation as an equilibrium, or close the gap between the optimal and ...

In continuum economies, widespread externalities are those over which each individual has negligible control. Nash–Walrasian equilibria with lump-sum transfers are defined, and their existence proved. They are then characterized by the property of “f constrained Pareto efficiency” for finite coalitions. More general “private good” Nash– Walrasian equilibria are characterized as private good con...

This paper reinterprets the γ -core (Chander and Tulkens in Int Tax Pub Financ 2:279–293, 1995; in Int J Game Theory 26:379–401, 1997) and justifies it as well as its prediction that the efficient coalition structure is stable in terms of the coalition formation theory. The problem of coalition formation is formulated as an infinitely repeated game in which the players must choose whether to co...

The paper explores the implications of melioration learning—an empirically significant variant of reinforcement learning—for game theory. We show that in games with invariable pay-offs melioration learning converges to Nash equilibria in a way similar to the replicator dynamics. Since melioration learning is known to deviate from optimizing behavior when an action’s rewards decrease with increa...

This paper suggests a cognitive basis for the isomorphism of a utility function and a distribution function. With only a minimal set of cognitive tools ordinal comparison and frequency processing an object can be evaluated by its relative position in a reference set. This cognitive evaluation, coupled with “more is better” preferences, is consistent with possession of a cardinal utility functio...

Soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr. var. Glabrous D62-7812) plants were grown in aerated Hoagland and Arnon mineral nutrient solution containing 0 or 2.6 mum S-ethyl dipropylthiocarbamate (EPTC) in a growth chamber. After 19 days exposure to EPTC, total leaf fresh weight was reduced 18% by 2.6 mum EPTC while total leaf fatty acid content was reduced 63%. Galactolipid content decreased while phospho...

The paper studies insurance with moral hazard in a system of contingent-claims markets. Insurance buyers are modelled as Cournot monopolists or oligopolists. The other agents condition their expectations on market prices, as in models of rational-expectations equilibrium with asymmetric information. Thereby they correctly anticipate accident probabilities corresponding to effort incentives indu...

Using company account data for the US and four European countries this paper analyses the impact of ICT spillovers on companies’ performance. We use different definitions of spillovers to account for inter and intra-industry spillover effects, as well as assessing the presence of spillovers from the US to Europe. We also look at the possibility that spillovers might take some time to materialis...