Challenging Exclusionary Naturalism

Exclusionary Contracts ∗

When do participants in a market have the incentive to enter into agreements that exclude potential entrants? This paper synthesizes, extends and illustrates the theory of exclusionary contracts. In a model of incumbent contracts with downstream buyers, a “Chicago benchmark”yields no incentive for exclusionary long term contracts. Departures from the benchmark in each of three directions yield ...

Exclusionary Discounts

We consider a two-period model with two sellers and one buyer in which the efficient outcome calls for the buyer to purchase one unit from each seller in each period. We show that when the buyer’s valuations between periods are linked by switching costs and at least one seller is financially constrained, there exist plausible conditions under which exclusion arises as the unique equilibrium out...

Cultural Naturalism

Culture can be viewed as the means by which a society can live in its surroundings by acquiring and consuming free energy. This naturalistic notion assumes that everything can be valued in terms of energy, hence also social changes can be described as natural processes that are influenced by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. This universal law, when formulated as an equation of motion, reveals tha...

Positivism, Naturalism, and Anti- Naturalism in the Social Sciences

Quining Naturalism

Scientific naturalism is a metaphysical doctrine, a view about what there is, or what we ought to believe that there is. It maintains that natural science should be our guide in matters metaphysical: the ontology we should accept is the ontology that turns out to be required by science. Quine is often regarded as the doyen of scientific naturalists, though the supporting cast includes such gian...