Crude oil prices have been fluctuating over time and by a large range. It is the disorganization of oil price series that makes it difficult to deduce the changing trends of oil prices in the middle- and long-terms and predict their price levels in the short-term. Following a price-state...

Two agents are engaged in a joint activity that yields a common perperiod payoff at two rounds of play. The expert announces the probability that the current state of the world is low, instead of high, at each stage. Having received the report of the expert, the decision-maker takes action at...

In previous models of rational belief equilibria (RBE), individual states of belief were the foundation for the construction of the endogenous state space where individual states of belief were described with the method of assessment variables. This leads to a lack of "anonymity" where the...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a non-technical exposition of the main conclusions of the theory of Rational Belief Equilibrium (RBE) for market volatility. It is argued that the theory of Rational Belief Equilibria (RBE) provides a unified paradigm for explaining market volatility by...

The role of speculators in the oil markets has been vastly investigated during the last few years. Several authors focused on the definition of speculation while others examined the relationship between oil prices and the behavior of trading actors. In this paper, we formulate a new theory able...

Endogenous Uncertainty is that component of economic risk and market volatility which is propagated within the economy by the beliefs and actions of agents. The theory of Rational Belief (see Kurz [1994]) permits rational agents to hold diverse beliefs and consequently, a Rational Belief...

We consider a situation where groups negotiate over the allocation of a surplus (which is used to fund group specific goods). Each group is composed of agents who have differing valuations for public goods. Members choose a representative to take decisions on their behalf. Specifically,...

Are natural resources a source of conflict or stability? Empirical studies demonstrate that rents from natural resources, and in particular oil, are an important source of civil war. Allegedly, resource rents attract rent seekers, which destabilize society. However, there is a large literature...

We build a simple model of legal dualism in which a pro-poor legal reform, under certain conditions, causes the conflicting custom to go some way toward producing the change intended by the legislator. It then acts as an 'outside anchor' that exerts a 'magnet effect' on the custom. We illustrate...

This paper analyzes farsighted stable sets when agents have heterogeneous expectations over the dominance paths. We consider expectation functions satisfying two properties of path-persistence and consistency. We show that farsighted stable sets with heterogeneous expectations always exist and...