Author: Jean-Jacques Laffont Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674265554 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 160
Book Description
These three elegant essays develop principles central to the understanding of the diverse ways in which imperfect information affects the distribution of resources, incentives, and the evaluation of economic policy. The first concerns the special role that information plays in the allocation process when it is possible to improve accuracy through private investment. The common practice of hiring "experts" whose information is presumably much better than their clients' is analyzed. Issues of cooperative behavior when potential group members possess diverse pieces of information are addressed. Emphasis is placed on the adaptation of the "core" concept from game theory to the resource allocation model with differential information. The second essay deals with the extent to which agents can influence the random events they face. This is known as moral hazard, and in its presence there is a potential inefficiency in the economic system. Two special models are studied: the role of moral hazard in a monetary economy, and the role of an outside adjudicatory agency that has the power to enforce fines and compensation. The final essay discusses the problem of certainty equivalence in economic policy. Conditions under which a full stochastic optimization can be calculated by solving a related, much simpler "certainty equivalence" problem are developed. The reduction in the complexity of calculation involved is very great compared with the potential loss of efficiency.
Author: Professor of Economics Graciela Chichilnisky Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 0521553555 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Leading theorists offer insights on the role of uncertainty and information in the market.
Author: John L. Lott Jr. Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1134745605 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
The theory of the firm has recently undergone a dramatic transformation, drawing heavily on the pathbreaking work of Armen Alchian. This volume explores his contribution to the debate, including essays by Harold Demetz, Ben Klein, Jerry Jordan and Art Devany.
Author: Frank H. Knight Publisher: Cosimo, Inc. ISBN: 1602060053 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 401
Book Description
A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.
Author: Michel Callon Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262515962 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 301
Book Description
A call for a new form of democracy in which “hybrid forums” composed of experts and laypeople address such sociotechnical controversies as hazardous waste, genetically modified organisms, and nanotechnology. Controversies over such issues as nuclear waste, genetically modified organisms, asbestos, tobacco, gene therapy, avian flu, and cell phone towers arise almost daily as rapid scientific and technological advances create uncertainty and bring about unforeseen concerns. The authors of Acting in an Uncertain World argue that political institutions must be expanded and improved to manage these controversies, to transform them into productive conversations, and to bring about “technical democracy.” They show how “hybrid forums”—in which experts, non-experts, ordinary citizens, and politicians come together—reveal the limits of traditional delegative democracies, in which decisions are made by quasi-professional politicians and techno-scientific information is the domain of specialists in laboratories. The division between professionals and laypeople, the authors claim, is simply outmoded. The authors argue that laboratory research should be complemented by everyday experimentation pursued in the real world, and they describe various modes of cooperation between the two. They explore a range of concrete examples of hybrid forums that have dealt with sociotechnical controversies including nuclear waste disposal in France, industrial waste and birth defects in Japan, a childhood leukemia cluster in Woburn, Massachusetts, and mad cow disease in the United Kingdom. The authors discuss the implications for political decision making in general and describe a “dialogic” democracy that enriches traditional representative democracy. To invent new procedures for consultation and representation, they suggest, is to contribute to an endless process that is necessary for the ongoing democratization of democracy.
Author: Qiang Gong Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
In the first essay, we analyze how the strategic interaction of firms will affect a firm's decision in disclosing verifiable information. In our model, a firm that is privately informed of market demand will compete with an uninformed rival. When it is common knowledge that the firm is informed and the verifiable disclosure requires no cost, there exists an equilibrium in which the informed firm will fully disclose its information. However, when there is uncertainty about whether the informed firm has received the information or not, then the firm's equilibrium ex-post disclosure strategy will depend on the subsequent competition. We consider quantity-competition with three different timings: the informed firm is a Stackleberg leader; the informed firm is a Stackleberg follower; and the two firms choose quantity output simultaneously (Cournot). We show when the informed firm is a leader, the information will be fully revealed for strategic reasons. When the informed firm is a follower or the two firms make quantity decisions simultaneously, in order to maximize its profit, the informed firm will disclose bad news and withhold the good news to make its competitor less aggressive. In the second essay, we analyze the optimal buy-back contracts for a supplier selling to a retailer when demand is uncertain and when the retailer can take a costly hidden action to forecast demand more accurately. The supplier chooses the wholesale and buy back price to maximize his profits given that the retailer's inventory order level and private information acquisition decisions are both chosen to maximize the retailer's profits. In contrast to the standard buy-back contract model in which the first best of the system can always be implemented, our model suggests that the supplier pays not only the cost of acquiring information, but also the information rent to induce the retailer to invest in acquiring information. In this case, the first best of the system cannot be always implemented. Our model can explain the empirical results that the Vendor Managed Inventory systems are prevalent while the retailer is better informed than the supplier, which cannot be well explained by the standard buy-back contract model.
Author: John D'Agata Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1555977340 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 821
Book Description
"Now, with "The making of the American essay' the editor includes selections ranging from Anne Bradstreet's secular prayers to Washington Irving's satires, Emily Dickinson's love letters to Kenneth Goldsmith's catalog's, Gertrude Stein's portraits to James Baldwin's and Norman Mailer's mediations on boxing. In this volume the editor uncovers new stories in the American essay's past and shows us that some of the most fiercely daring writers in the American literary canon have turned to the essay in order to produce some of our culture's most exhilarating art."-- book jacket.
Author: Jean-Jacques Laffont
Author: Professor of Economics Graciela Chichilnisky
Author: Kenneth Joseph Arrow
Author: Anthony Joseph Creane
Author: John L. Lott Jr.
Author: Richard Timothy Holden
Author: Frank H. Knight
Author: Michel Callon
Author: Qiang Gong
Author: John D'Agata