Most economic models are based on the self-interest hypothesis that assumes that all people are exclusively motivated by their material self-interest. In recent years experimental economists have gathered overwhelming evidence that systematically refutes the self-interest hypothesis and suggests that many people are strongly motivated by concerns for fairness and reciprocity. Moreover, several theoretical papers have been written showing that the observed phenomena can be explained in a rigorous and tractable manner. These theories in turn induced a new wave of experimental research offering additional exciting insights into the nature of preferences and into the relative performance of competing theories of fairness. The purpose of this paper is to review these recent developments, to point out open questions, and to suggest avenues for future research.
The paper considers the evolution of portfolio rules in markets with stationary returns and endogenous prices. The ultimate success of a portfolio rule is measured by the wealth share the rule is eventually able to conquer in competition with other portfolio rules. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for portfolio rules to be evolutionary stable. In the case of i.i.d. returns we identify a simple portfolio rule to be the unique evolutionary stable strategy. Moreover we demonstrate that mean-variance optimization is not evolutionary stable while the CAPM-rule always imitates the best portfolio rule and survives.
The present paper applies a theoretical two-sector three-factor model to analyze a variety of energy tax reforms with the common feature of at least partly exempting the energy-intensive export sector from the tax. As a result, all scenarios with exemptions reduce energy less than the non-discriminating textbook version of the energy tax. Moreover, in the two scenarios that exemplify typical attributes of the tax reforms in Germany and Denmark, an increase in total energy use is possible. This is due to a positive output effect resulting from a substitution of the energy-intensive for the labor-intensive commodity.
We show that concerns for fairness may have dramatic consequences for the optimal provision of incentives in a moral hazard context. Incentive contracts that are optimal when there are only selfish actors become inferior when some agents are concerned about fairness. Conversely, contracts that are doomed to fail when there are only selfish actors provide powerful incentives and become superior when there are also fair-minded players. These predictions are strongly supported by the results of a series of experiments. Furthermore, our results suggest that the existence of fair actors may be an important reason why many contracts are left deliberately incomplete.
In the incomplete markets model with numeraire asset and a single consumption good we show that, even with homothetic preferences, on compact sets of prices Continuity, Walras' identity and Homogeneity characterize the properties of market excess demand. This result is proved by an extension of Mantel (1976) to the case of incomplete markets.
This paper tests the effect of a matching mechanism on donations in a controlled fieldnexperiment. We match the donations of students at the University of Zurich who, each semester, have to decide whether they wish to contribute to two Social Funds. Our results support thenhypothesis that a matching mechanism increases contributions to a public good. However, the effect depends on the extent to which the contributions are matched. Whereas a 25 percentnincrease of a donation does not increase the willingness to contribute, a 50 percent increase does have an effect. In addition, people need to be socially inclined to react to the matching mechanism. The field experiment provides some evidence suggesting that the matching mechanism crowds-out the intrinsic motivation of giving.
This paper examines the effects of deficits spending on the Nazi recovery. Although deficits were substantial and full employment was reached within four years, their fiscal impulse was too small to account for the speed of recovery. VAR forecasts of output using fiscal and monetary policy instruments also suggest only a minor role for active policy. Nazi policies deliberately crowded out private demand to ensure high rates of rearmament. Military spending dominated civilian work-creation already in 1934. Investment in autobahn construction was minimal during the recovery and gained momentum only in 1936 when full employment was approaching. We find some effects of the Four Years Plan of late 1936, which boosted government spending further and tightened public control over the economy.
This paper surveys recent advances in the application of random dynamical systems theory in economics. It illustrates the usefulness of this framework for modeling and analysis of economic phenomena with stochastic components, mainly focusing on stochastic dynamic models in economic growth. The paper also highlights some directions for further applications and interdisciplinary research on random dynamical systems.
In this paper, we study the effect of financial markets on the investment of a two-good two-country economy with stochastic production in a dynamic framework. Each country produces and invests only one good and, therefore, makes decisions as a central planner in an optimal growth model. Trade between consumers of both countries, however, takes place on competitive (spot or financial) markets. Wencompare the investment-consumption decisions of both `market' models with the benchmark-case of an integrated world-equilibrium. In the log-linear case, we can uniquely characterize the state-dependent preferences of consumers that lead to dynamically efficient investment decisions. We show that the investment decisions in both `market' models are, in general, inefficient as compared with the efficient, ornintegrated world economy, case.n
This paper presents a complete analysis of a stochastic version of the Solow growth model in which all parameters are ergodic random variables. Applying random dynamical systems theory, we prove that the dynamics and, in particular, the long-runnbehavior is uniquely determined by a globally attracting stable random fixed point. We also discuss the relation of our approach to that of ergodic Markov equilibria.
