Consider a population of farmers who live around a lake. Each farmer engages in trade with his two adjacent neighbors. The trade is governed by a prisoner's dilemma "rule of engagement". A farmer's payoff is the sum of the payoffs from the two prisoner's dilemma games played with his two...

Consider a population of farmers who live around a lake. Each farmer engages in trade with his two adjacent neighbors. The trade is governed by a prisoner's dilemma quot;rule of engagement.quot; A farmer's payoff is the sum of the payoffs from the two prisoner's dilemma games played with his two...

We model group formation as a response to relative deprivation. We employ two measures of relative deprivation. We show that in the case of each of these measures the process of deprivation-induced self-selection into groups reaches a steady state, and that the steady-state distribution differs...

This paper develops a model of voluntary migration into degrading work. The essence of the model is a tension between two “bads” that which arises from being relatively deprived at home, and that which arises from engaging in humiliating work away from home. Balancing between these two...

Drawing on the literature of occupational status and social distance, a theory is developed of labor migration that is prompted by a desire to avoid “social humiliation.” A closed-economy general equilibrium model that incorporates occupational status and examines the interaction between the...

Acknowledging individuals' distaste for low relative income renders trade less appealing when trade is viewed as a technology that integrates economies by merging separate social spheres into one. We define a “trembling trade” as a situation in which gains from trade are overtaken by losses...