We discuss the formation of technical standards platforms in industries with network externalities where firms are free to choose their degree of technical compatibility with competitors. In our model, firms choose affiliation to a technical standards coalition in the first stage of a game, and...

Since early 1994, there have been signs of an upturn in economic activity . The strength and scope of the recovery depend to a large extent on the ability of companies to exploit their competitiveness, which is dependent on the decisions they take today, particularly where both tangible and...

We study the effects of unequal representation in the interest-group system on the degree of information transmission between a lobbyist and a policymaker. Employing a dynamic cheap-talk model in which the lobbyist cares instrumentally about his reputation for truthtelling, we show that the...

This study is part of a continuing program of research into the performance of economic infrastructure industries, which was commenced by the Bureau of Industry Economics. It is the third Waterfront Benchmarking report in the cycle. The study builds on the two previous waterfront studies by...

Recent surveys in the United States and the Muslim world show widespread misinformation about the events of September 11, 2001. Using data from 9 predominantly Muslim countries, we study how such beliefs depend on exposure to news media and levels of education. Standard economic theory would...

In a pure-exchange economy involving one perishable consumption good and risk-averse consumers, the elasticity of a consumer’s Pareto-efficient consumption with respect to aggregate output equals the reciprocal of the ratio of the consumer’s coefficient of relative risk aversion to average...

A supplement to Economic Analysis (3rd Edition).

A dual representation of a technology, e.g., a cost function, may not contain all of the technological information, but it will contain all of the information about input vectors that would be chosen by a cost-minimizing firm. At least this much is clear for deterministic technologies. The main...

This paper estimates a constant returns to scale agricultural production function of the three basic factors of production. Such a function is a useful tool for macroeconomic, growth, and development studies. It uses the shares approach that Solow used in 1957 and very disaggregated Canadian...

In recent years, understanding the structure and function of complex networks has become the foundation for explaining many different real- world complex biological, technological and informal social phenomena. Techniques from statistical physics have been successfully applied to the analysis of...