This paper proposes an explanation for the universal human desire for increasing consumption. It holds that it was moulded in evolutionary times by a mechanism known to biologists as sexual selection, whereby a certain trait observable consumption is used by members of one sex to signal their unobservable characteristics valuable to members of the opposite sex. It then goes on to show that the ...

Are minorities more vulnerable to opportunism? We find that individuals from a minority group face greater danger of being cheated by an opportunistic firm because trade with the group is less frequent and the value of a reputation for fairness toward the group is correspondingly smaller. If the majority is sufficiently large it can only lose from a solidarity strategy of punishing opportunism ...

“Social Choice: Recent Developments” Walter Bossert and John A. Weymark In the past quarter century, there has been a dramatic shift of focus in social choice theory, with structured sets of alternatives and restricted domains of the sort encountered in economic problems coming to the fore. This article provides an overview of some of the recent contributions to four topics in normative social ...

All quasivalues rest on a set of three basic axioms (efficiency, null player, and additivity), which are augmented with positivity for random order values, and with positivity and partnership for weighted values. We introduce the concept of Möbius value associated with a sharing system and show that this value is characterized by the above three axioms. We then establish that (i) a Möbius value...

This paper develops asymptotically distribution-free inference for testing inequality indices with dependent samples. It considers the interpolated Gini coe$cient and the generalized entropy class, which includes several commonly used inequality indices. We "rst establish inference tests for changes in inequality indices with completely dependent samples (i.e., matched pairs) and then generaliz...

Conditions α and β are two well-known rationality conditions in the theory of rational choice. This paper examines the implications of weaker versions of these two rationality conditions in the context of solutions to nonconvex bargaining problems. It is shown that, together with the standard axioms of efficiency and strict individual rationality, they imply rationalizability of solutions to no...

This paper provides a new treatment of the problem of group action and political protest. It has two aims (a) to model resistance against state policies as a threshold public good, and (b) to consider legitimacy in terms of how legitimacy considerations affect choice. Experimental evidence suggests that the level of resistance depends on whether the sovereign is legitimated: high claims are rej...

A random assignment is ordinally efficient if it is not stochastically dominated with respect to individual preferences over sure objects. Ordinal efficiency implies (is implied by) ex post (ex ante) efficiency. A simple algorithm characterizes ordinally efficient assignments: our solution, probabilistic serial (PS), is a central element within their set. Random priority (RP) orders agents from...

In this paper, “innovative intelligence–biased technological change” (IIBTC) is examined as an alternative to the traditional concept of skill-biased technological change (SBTC) as a source of increases in wage inequality. The innovative intelligence of ordinary or average workers is an important element in productivity and can be heterogeneous across workers. Because technologies are heterogen...

Subjective Well-Being and Relative Deprivation: An Empirical Link This paper explores the relationship between two well-established concepts of measuring individual well-being: the concept of happiness, i.e. self-reported level of satisfaction with income and life, and relative deprivation/satisfaction, i.e. the gaps between the individual's income and the incomes of all individuals richer/poor...