We introduce a new interpretation of two re­ lated notions conditional utility and utility independence. Unlike the traditional inter­ pretation, the new interpretation render the notions the direct analogues of their prob­ abilistic counterparts. To capture these no­ tions formally, we appeal to the notion of util­ ity distribution, introduced in previous paper. We show that utility distributi...

We propose the group knockoff filter, a method for false discovery rate control in a linear regression setting where the features are grouped, and we would like to select a set of relevant groups which have a nonzero effect on the response. By considering the set of true and false discoveries at the group level, this method gains power relative to sparse regression methods. We also apply our me...

In this paper we consider the classical problem of dividing a land among many agents so that everybody is satisfied with the parcel she receives. In the literature, it is usually assumed that all the agents are endowed with cardinally comparable, additive, and monotone utility functions. In many economic and political situations violations of these assumptions may arise. We show how a family of...

Spatial coordination of land use change is pivotal in agri-environmental policy to improve the delivery environmental goods. This paper implements a laboratory experiment study spatial conservation auction. In addition letting individual producers bid competitively against each other supply goods, we ask whether opportunities for joint bidding can enhance auction cost-effectively. Auction perfo...

I present and solve the problem of a producer who faces costs of acquiring, absorbing, and processing information. I establish a series of theoretical results describing the producer’s behaviour. First, I find the conditions under which the producer prefers to set a plan for the price he or she charges, or instead prefers to set a plan for the quantity he or she sells. Second, I show that the a...

The global market for virtual items, characters and currencies was estimated to exceed 2.1 Billion USD in 2007. Selling virtual goods for real money is an increasingly common revenue model not only for online games and virtual worlds, but for social networking sites and other mainstream online services as well. What drives consumer spending on virtual items is an increasingly relevant question,...

Virtual Worlds have become serious business models and thus gained the attention of law professionals. The legal problems arising out of Virtual Worlds have started a discussion which will be summarized in this article. Moreover arguments will be delivered which can be used to protect users of those Virtual Realities.