The paper formalizes several of the ideas about commitment set out by Thomas Schelling in 'The Strategy of Conflict'. Using a game-theoretic framework we formalize and interpret 'promise' and 'threat' as different species of commitment. We also distinguish the 'pure promise', the 'pure threat',...

If there are no restrictions on the extent to which government plans can be made contingent, then there is some Paretian government with an optimal plan that never reaches a node at which deviation from the plan would yield a Pareto improvement. (At unreached nodes deviations from the optimal...

We give rigorous game-theoretic meaning to the Stackelberg notions of time inconsistency and to the idea of commitment being of value (or sequential irrationality). Time inconsistency treats desirable deviations only along the path, whereas sequential irrationality treats deviations everywhere...

The paper offers a game-theoretic framework for discussing commitment and time consistency. We show when a commitment (or just the appearance of one) is valuable, how valiable it is, and whether the commitment is time consistent. We formulate restrictions on the set of eligible commitments....

The justification for any public policies are dissolving as technology advances. New detection and metering technologies are being developed for highways, parking, marine farming, and auto emissions, making property-rights solutions viable. Information becomes more accessible and user-friendly,...

Knowledge has its counterpart in action, and your actions emerge from your normative calls in personal policy-making. On those two steps I propose to bring to the traditional Hayekian knowledge problem a prism of Smithian moral analysis. This approach perhaps sheds new light on the absurdities...

Do economists reach a conclusion on a given policy issue? One way to answer the question is to survey economists at large. Another is to look at the published judgments of economists who have gone on the record. Relative to an anonymous survey, going on the record makes for much greater...

Articulate knowledge entails the triad: information, interpretation, and judgment. Information is the reading of the facts through a working interpretation. Much of modern political economy has miscarried by discoursing as though interpretation were symmetric and final. This move has the effect...

The ordinary person makes decisions everyday that are important to maintaining his health. But those decisions are familiar and routine. For new decisions, important decisions, he would usually appoint a doctor to the task. The practice of serious medicine is the province of the doctor, just as...