Production efficiency and constraints on profit taxation and profit distribution in economies with Ramsey taxation

In economies with Ramsey taxation, decreasing returns to scale, and private ownership, we show that second-best production efficiency is desirable when the grouping of private firms induced by the profit taxation power of the government is at least as fine as the grouping of firms induced by the institutional rules of profit distribution in the economy. The classic results of Dasgupta and Stiglitz (Rev Econ Stud 39:87–103, 1972) (of firm-specific profit taxation) and Diamond and Mirrlees (Am Econ Rev 61:8–27, 1971a; Am Econ Rev 61:261–278, 1971b) and Guesnerie (A contribution to the pure theory of taxation, 1995) (of uniform 100 % profit taxation) follow as special cases of our model. Moreover, second-best analysis shows that optimal profit taxation is a substitute for optimal intermediate input taxation. In smooth economies, proportional, lump-sum, and affine modes of profit taxation are equivalent. We rework Mirrlees (Rev Econ Stud 39:105–111, 1972) counterexample, which is posed in the context of a non-smooth economy, to show that second-best production efficiency continues to remain desirable under an affine structure of profit taxation.     

On credible coalitional deviations by prudent players

In this paper we first explore the predictive power of the solution notion called conservative stable standard of behaviour (CSSB), introduced by Greenberg (The theory of social situations, 1990), in environments with farsighted players (as modelled in Xue, Econ Theory 11:603–627, 1998) as intuitively it is quite nice. Unfortunately, we find that CSSB has a number of undesirable properties: most importantly, it makes vacuous predictions for most natural social environments. Therefore, we introduce an intuitive refinement of this solution which we call conservative stable weak predictor. In settings of proper voting games, we explore some existence properties of this new solution and also show that it may not be unique. However, unfortunately, this refinement may also lead to non-intuitive vacuous predictions.     

Modeling resource flow asymmetries using condensation networks

This paper examines strict Nash networks in the noncooperative directed flow model of Bala and Goyal (Econometrica 68(5):1181–1230, 2000) with partner heterogeneity (payoff of a player in a link depends on the identity of her link partner). We focus on the asymmetries with regard to the resources obtained by players. Using the notion of condensation networks, we partition the population into groups of players who obtain the same resources and order these groups according to the resources they obtain. We show that the partner heterogeneity assumption impacts the strict Nash networks asymmetries in a different way than Galeotti (Econ Theory 29(1):163–179, 2006) player heterogeneity assumption (the payoff of a player in a link depends on her own identity).     

The Opportunities for Adopting Inflation Targeting in Tunisia: a Cointegration Study and Transmission Channels of Monetary Policy

The major aim of this paper is to analyze, at a first stage, the trend of inflation in Tunisia, then to conduct an overview of inflation measures and, to develop a simple inflation forecasting by applying the Box and Jenkins (Time series analysis: forecasting and control. Holden day, San Francisco, 1976) method. It is essential to understand the dynamics of the core and global inflation, and to explore the relationships that may undermine cointegration inflation via the Engle and Granger (Econometrica 55:251–276, 1987) and Johansen (J Econ Dyn Control 12:231–254, 1988) methods on control variables during a recent monthly period, ranging from 1996 to 2006. Concerning the Tunisian case, and by retracing the similar study conducted by Ndiyae and Badji (Les déterminants de l’inflation au Sénégal: Approche par les fonctions de consommations, Agence nationale de la statistique et de la méthodologie, 2008), the results have shown the existence of just a single cointegration relationship between the variables concerning a short term and long-term dynamics. Moreover, within the same spirit, a structural analysis based on structural VAR of Blanchard and Quah (Am Econ Rev 79:655–673, 1989) method has managed to identify the shocks impact on the supply and demand variables on the consumer prices index through the study of transmission channels of monetary policy. The outcomes have exposed that the relatively low impact degree of control variables on inflation in Tunisia is consistent with those carried out by Gupta and Komen (Time aggregation and the contradictions with causal relationships: can economic theory come to the rescue? 2008).     

Propositionwise judgment aggregation: the general case

In the theory of judgment aggregation, it is known for which agendas of propositions it is possible to aggregate individual judgments into collective ones in accordance with the Arrow-inspired requirements of universal domain, collective rationality, unanimity preservation, non-dictatorship and propositionwise independence. But it is only partially known (e.g., only in the monotonic case) for which agendas it is possible to respect additional requirements, notably non-oligarchy, anonymity, no individual veto power, or extended unanimity preservation. We fully characterize the agendas for which there are such possibilities, thereby answering the most salient open questions about propositionwise judgment aggregation. Our results build on earlier results by Nehring and Puppe (Strategy-proof social choice on single-peaked domains: possibility, impossibility and the space between, 2002), Nehring (Oligarchies in judgment aggregation: a characterization, 2006), Dietrich and List (Soc Choice Welf 29(1):19–33, 2007a) and Dokow and Holzman (J Econ Theory 145(2):495–511, 2010a).     

Generalized average rules as stable Nash mechanisms to implement generalized median rules

We consider a problem in which a policy is chosen from a one-dimensional set over which voters have single-peaked preferences. While Moulin (Public Choice 35:437–455, 1980) and others subsequent works have focused on strategy-proof rules, Renault and Trannoy (Mimeo 2011) and Renault and Trannoy (J Pub Econ Theory 7:169–199, 2005) have shown that the average rule implements a generalized median rule in Nash equilibria and provide an interpretation of the parameters in Moulin’s rule. In this article, we first extend their result by showing that a wide range of voting rules which includes the average rule can implement Moulin’s rule in Nash equilibria. Moreover, we show additionally that within this class, generalized average rules are Cournot stable. That is, from any strategy profile, any best response path must converge to a Nash equilibrium.     

The Internalization of the “Father” Object Among Young Men and Its Relation to Separation–Individuation Patterns, Anxiety and Depression

While the father’s influence on his offspring’s personalities and well-being has historically been neglected, literature on this topic has recently been accumulating. The father’s influence is touches upon numerous practical and ethical implications for social work, psychotherapy, and psychodiagnosis. The present study draws from Mahler’s (Mahler, Separation individuation. The selected papers of Margaret S. Mahler, 1963, 1967, 1974; Mahler et al., The psychological birth of the human infant. Symbiosis and individuation, 1975) theory of the psychological birth of the child and offers a novel focus on the pivotal internal representation of the father. According to this theory, hindered developmental processes lead to depression and anxiety. 130 students took part in the current study, in which the internal father object was examined with regard to separation–individuation processes, and the levels of anxiety and depression were recorded. The study’s results show a significant negative relation between the quality of the paternal object and levels of anxiety and depression. A theoretical model was constructed to illustrate the similarities and discrepancies in the development of depression and anxiety in light of the father object as mediated by the separation–individuation processes that were examined.     

A new approach for bounding awards in bankruptcy problems

The solution for the contested garment problem, proposed in the Babylonic Talmud, suggests that each agent should receive at least some part of the resources whenever the claim exceeds the available amount. In this context, we propose a new method to define lower bounds on awards, an idea that has underlied the theoretical analysis of bankruptcy problems from its beginning (O’Neill, Math Soc Sci 2:345–371, 1982) to present day (Dominguez and Thomson, Econ Theory 28:283–307, 2006). Specifically, starting from the fact that a society establishes its own set of commonly accepted equity principles, our proposal ensures to each agent the smallest amount she gets according to all the admissible rules. We analyze its recursive application for different sets of equity principles.     

Assessment of the distributive impact of national trade reforms in Brazil

This paper quantifies the distributional and poverty effects of trade liberalization in Brazil using household survey data. We estimate the consumption and labor impact of Mercosur trade reform following the methodology suggested by Porto (J Int Econ 70:140–160, 2006) and Nicita (J Dev Econ 89(1):19–27, 2009). Results show that trade liberalization had a pro-poor effect in Brazil. This result is largely explained by two major observations: the fact that consumption good prices decreased after Brazil entered Mercosur and a close to zero labor income effect. We find that poverty decreased after national trade liberalization (both for women and men). Additionally, we obtained no significant inequality effects after national trade reforms.     

Note on social choice allocation in exchange economies with Cobb–Douglas preferences

We show that in a pure exchange economy with two agents and a finite number of goods, there exists no strategy-proof, Pareto-efficient, and non-dictatorial social choice allocation function on any local Cobb–Douglas preference domain. This is a slight extension of a result proved by Hashimoto (2008).     

Physical activity and patient-reported outcomes: enhancing impact

Physical activity (PA) is beneficial for cancer survivors across the cancer trajectory. Evidence indicates physical and psychosocial benefits, and ultimately, enhanced overall quality of life, for individuals who are more versus less active (Semin Oncol Nurs 23:285–296, 2007; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 14:1672–1680, 2005; J Cancer Surviv 4:87–100, 2010). A number of recent reviews have been conducted that examine different patient or survivor populations and outcomes. In general, the findings across the reviews reveal potential positive associations between exercise (structured activity one engages in for the purposes of enhancing health-related fitness outcomes) and PA (any physical movement, including lifestyle types of activity) with both physical and psychological outcomes. It is important to note, however, that depending on the nature of the review and the types of studies included in the review, the strength of the findings (i.e., effect size) vary. Despite this overwhelmingly positive evidence for the benefits of PA, activity levels are very low among cancer survivors, with one study reporting only 22 % of survivors as active enough to achieve health benefits (Cancer 112(11):2475–2482, 2008). This suggests that we must begin to better understand the factors that impact the uptake and maintenance of PA among cancer survivors. These potential factors are important when considering the patient-reported outcomes to assess and can include timing (i.e., during or after treatment completion), characteristics of the cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatments (i.e., early vs. late stage cancers), and characteristics of the individual (i.e., older vs. younger).     

Work and Non-Pathological Gambling

Most economists believe that people would value an additional $1,000 in income more if they were poor than if rich, but if so, people should not gamble according to standard expected utility theory. Thus, economists have been challenged to explain the pervasiveness of gambling in human behavior. A recently proposed solution to this theoretical challenge (Nyman 2004; Nyman et al. in Journal of Socio-Economics 37:2492–2504, 2008) suggests that, because having to work for one’s income is a fact of life in market economies, many individuals view the winnings from gambling not only as additional income, but as additional income for which one does not need to work. As a result, individuals, and especially those who are disadvantaged in the labor market, attach a utility premium to gambling winnings and gamble because of that. This utility premium would explain the pervasiveness of gambling in society, especially among the economically disadvantaged. This paper reviews the economic approaches to explaining non-pathological gambling, presents an overview of the new theory, and uses data from the National Epidemiological Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions from 2001 to test it. The results indicate that the respondent’s work characteristics explain the decision to gamble in a way that is consistent with theory.     

Omnivorousness as the bridging of cultural holes: A measurement strategy

Recent research and theory at the intersection of cultural sociology and network analysis have converged around the notion of cultural holes: patterns of cultural choice that position the person as a bridge not between other persons but between cultural worlds. This is an approach that promises to open up new vistas in our conceptualization of the relationship between social position and cultural taste, but that so far lacks operational grounding. In this article, I draw on Breiger’s (1974) formalization of the idea of the duality of persons and groups along with classical formalizations of brokerage for sociometric networks (Burt 1992) to suggest that the “cultural ego network” of a typical survey respondent can be reconstructed from patterns of audience overlap among the cultural items that are chosen by each respondent. This leads to a formalization of the notion of omnivorousness as relatively low levels of clustering in the cultural network: namely, omnivorousness as cultural network efficiency. I show how this metric overcomes the difficulties that have plagued previous attempts to produce ordinal indicators of omnivorousness from simple counts of the number of cultural choices, while providing novel substantive (and sometime counter-intuitive) insights into the relationship between socio-demographic status markers and patterns of cultural choice in the contemporary United States.     

The ��Semiotic Self��: From Peirce and Mead to Wiley and Singer

Norbert Wiley (1994) provides a synthesis of Peirce??s and Mead??s views on the self. The Peirce-Mead ideal type model of the self involves the I and the me as well as the I and the you. Hence, at each moment we are a combined ??me-I-you?? in past, present and future. Milton Singer (1989) discovers the semiotic self through his anthropological research, but does not apply the concept as rigorously as one might hope. Peirce??s triadic epistemology and Pragmatism is explored to frame his contribution to the semiotic self. His categories of Firstness, Secondnes and Thirdness are briefly considered. Some anecdotal information about the self in Indic Civilization is discussed. It is argued that the INSOR model can be useful. The key is to move beyond Cartesian notions and to see the semotic self as a ??semiotic object,?? always subject to interpretation by the person engaged in symbolic interaction and exchange.     

An axiomatization of success

In this paper we give an axiomatic characterization of a family of measures of success defined by Laruelle and Valenciano (Soc Choice Welf 27:171–197, 2005) for voting rules.     

Inequality and the time structure of earnings: evidence from Germany

This paper studies the relationships between annual and subannual inequality and mobility during the course of the year. We apply an exact decomposition framework as outlined in Wodon and Yitzhaki (Econ Bull 4:1–8, 2003), and in Yitzhaki and Wodon (Research on Economic Inequality 12:179–199, 2004). Earnings records of pension insurants in Germany serve as the database. The long time horizon of our database allows us to investigate the stability and robustness of the parameters of the decomposition over time. Specifically, we show that the mobility component of the decomposition, as measured by Gini correlation coefficients, changes over the observation period. This makes it difficult to predict the impact of the income accounting period on inequality in a more general context. Thus, it is of paramount importance to use income data from a uniform accounting period in distributional analyses.     

Proportional quota weighted voting system hierarchies II

This article completes a characterization of achievable and unachievable hierarchies in weighted voting systems where the quota is a proportion of the total weight, proving the main conjecture of Bean et?al. (Soc Choice Welf 34: 397–410, 2010).     

Bayesian implementation with partially honest individuals

We apply the idea of partial honesty, first introduced by Dutta and Sen (Game Econ Behav 74:154–169, 2012) in a complete information setting, to environments with incomplete information. We show that with private values and at least three individuals, incentive compatibility and no veto power are together sufficient for full implementation without any further restrictions if all individuals are partially honest. With common values, however, an additional assumption called private best alternatives is needed. This condition holds, for example, in most standard resource allocation problems     

Sorokin as Lifelong Russian Intellectual: The Enactment of an Historically Rooted Sensibility

Prior to his 1922 emigration to Europe and thence to the United States, Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin had an exceptional intellectual and political career in Russia and the Soviet Union (Sorokin 1924, 1963a; Johnston 1995; Krotov 2005). Indeed, he was among the early founders of the science of sociology in his native land, where, according to a relatively recent bibliography (Sorokin 2000), he produced 162 Russian-language publications between the ages of 21 and 33. This listing includes not only book reviews and journal articles, but also substantial monographs and a two-volume theoretical treatise. While still a relatively young man, Sorokin had thus gained widespread recognition as a scholar of the first rank. He was also the initial chairperson (from 1919 to 1922) of a fledgling department of sociology at the University of Petrograd (St. Petersburg), an elected member of the national Constituent Assembly and an appointed staff member of the 1917 Provisional Government, the first democratic regime in Russia. This much would have sufficed for an entry in a sociological encyclopedia, and Sorokin’s political career has few parallels in the history of the field, other than the involvement of Emile Durkheim in French educational policy and the participation of Max Weber in creating the Weimar Republic in Germany. Nevertheless sociologists in the United States and most western historians of the field have not yet appreciated the full influence of the formative period, especially from 1905 to 1922. Lacking familiarity with Russian culture of that era and knowing little about the larger Russian socio-historical milieu, its intellectual discourse and collective memory, they have not been able to comprehend Sorokin’s outlook, behavior and professional output in the United States in relation to these earlier contextual factors. This is arguably a fundamental reason why many U.S. sociologists have tended to see Sorokin, especially since 1937, as a marginal figure and to regard his works largely as deviations from accepted social scientific practice. This paper will argue that a more adequate appreciation of Sorokin’s background and early adult life illumines both stylistic features of his works in America and also places into proper perspective several of his substantive foci that did not accord with contemporary “normal science” (Kuhn 1962). In short, despite his overall assimilation into American society and higher education, including his appointment at Harvard University and his election as president of the American Sociological Association, Sorokin should be understood in large measure as a life-long Russian intellectual. His was a Russian-born sensibility and consciousness—indeed a “Russian soul”—so deeply ingrained that it stamped his entire professional career in the United States, including his published researches, his popular sociology and his university teaching.