This paper compares Bayesian decision theory with robust decision theory where the decision maker optimizes with respect to the worst state realization. For a class of robust decision problems there exists a sequence of Bayesian decision problems whose solution converges towards the robust solution. It is shown that the limiting Bayesian problem displays infinite risk aversion and that decision...

Over the last three decades, ambient concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2) air pollution have declined by approximately 80%. This paper tests whether the 1970 Clean Air Act and its subsequent amendments caused this decline. The centerpiece of this legislation is the annual assignment of all counties to SO2 nonattainment or attainment categories. Polluters face stricter regulations in nonattain...

This paper explores the consequences and implications of the “dual role of promotion” in an environment where a firm must simultaneously achieve two distinct goals – assignment and incentive provision – via the strategic use of promotions. We argue that the efficient promotion rule is generally not implementable, as it necessarily entails timeinconsistent objectives: the firm is always tempted ...

Multiple-partners assignment game is the name used by Sotomayor [The multiple partners game, in: M. Majumdar (Ed.), Equilibrium and Dynamics: Essays in Honor of David Gale, The Macmillan Press Ltd., NewYork, 1992; The lattice structure of the set of stable outcomes of the multiple partners assignment game, Int. J. GameTheory 28 (1999) 567–583] to describe the cooperative structure of the many-t...

We study top trading cycles in a two-sided matching environment (Abdulkadiroglu and Sonmez (2003)) under the assumption that individuals’ preferences and objects’ priorities are drawn iid uniformly. We show that the number of individuals/objects assigned at each round follows a simple Markov chain and we explicitly derive the transition probabilities. This Markov property is used to shed light ...

In this paper, we consider the costs and benefits of transactions privacy. In the environment we consider, privacy is the concealment of potentially useful information, but concealment also potentially bestows benefits. In some versions of the environment, the standard Coasian logic applies: given an unambiguous initial assignment of rights and sufficient flexibility in contracting, efficiency ...

The probabilistic serial mechanism (Bogomolnaia and Moulin, 2001 [9]) is ordinally efficient but not strategy-proof. We study incentives in the probabilistic serial mechanism for large assignment problems. We establish that for a fixed set of object types and an agent with a given expected utility function, if there are sufficiently many copies of each object type, then reporting ordinal prefer...

This paper assesses the role of the public sector in adaptation to climate change. We first offer a definition and categorisation of climate change adaptation. We then consider the primary economic principles that can guide the assignment of adaptation tasks to either the private or the public sector, as well as those guiding assignment within the public sector itself. We find that the role of ...

In this work, I construct an extended model of the Heckscher-Ohlin model, in which there is an assignment problem of how to assign workers to two types of endowments, skilled and unskilled labor. In the comparative statics for a small open economy, when product prices change, the outputs change more than in the HeckscherOhlin model. In the comparative statics for a whole economy, when consumer ...

As a first step towards understanding the evolution of small groups in firms, this paper develops and tests a simple decision-theoretic model of research-unit evolution in which, as managers resolve their uncertainty over time, they shut down under-performing units and remove under-performing unit heads. The selection process generates several testable hypotheses about how unit and head charact...