Explaining the evolution and maintenance of cooperation among unrelated individuals is one of the fundamental problems in biology and the social sciences. Recent experimental evidence suggests that altruistic punishment is an important mechanism to maintain cooperation among humans. In this...

In this paper the well-known minimax theorems of Wald, Ville and Von Neumann are generalized under weaker topological conditions on the payoff function <i>f</i> and/or extended to the larger set of the Borel probability measures instead of the set of mixed strategies.

This contribution deals with the fundamental critique in Dinar et al. (1992, Theory and Decision 32) on the use of Game theory in water management: People are reluctant to monetary transfers unrelated to water prices and game theoretic solutions impose a computational burden. For the bilateral...

The 1994 International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) established goals for the expansion of population assistance. This global effort has so far not sufficiently been supported by donor funds. Dynamic panel estimation methods are used to see what lies behind the sharing of...

This paper studies patenting decisions by firms in relation to the negotiation and signing of the Helsinki and Oslo protocol as part of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. We use a uniquely constructed patent data set on SO2 abatement technologies filed in 15 signatory and...

A well known and established model in communication policy in sociology and marketing is that of opinion leadership. Opinion leaders are actors in a society who are able to affect the behavior of other members called followers. Hence, opinion leaders might have a considerable impact on the...

See 'Political Connections And Preferential Access To Finance: The Role Of Campaign Contributions' in <A HREF="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBX-4P3DY39-4&_user=499884&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1004038141&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000024499&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=499884&md5=d48c00bd293b73b16a75eb763ff75630"><I>Journal of Financial Economics</I>, 2008, 88(3), 554-580</A>.

We introduce the notion of a stone age equilibrium to study societies in which property rights are absent, bilateral exchange is either coercive or voluntary, and relative strength governs power relations in coercive exchange. We stress the importance of free disposal of goods which allows for...

This paper studies the equilibrium size of countries. Individuals in small countries have greater influence over the nature of political decision mak- ing while individuals in large countries have the advantage of more public goods and lower tax rates. The model implies that (i) there exists...

We analyze a simple model of local public good provision in a country consisting of a large number of heterogeneous regions, each comprising two districts, a city and a village. When districts remain autonomous and local public goods have positive spillover effects on the neighbouring district,...