In this paper, we investigate whether, because of differing social organisation, the effect of greater equality may have opposing effects on economic growth in different societies. We investigate a simple endogenous growth model where agents care about their status. This is determined by their...

We investigate the relationship between the continuous time best response dynamic, its perturbed version and evolutionary dynamics in relation to mixed strategy equilibria. We find that as the level of noise approaches zero, the perturbed best response dynamic has the same quantitative...

We report experiments designed to test the theoretical possibility, first discovered by Shapley (1964), that in some games learning fails to converge to any equilibrium, either in terms of marginal frequencies or of average play. Subjects played repeatedly in fixed pairings one of two 3 × 3...

This paper analyses comparative statics for two classes of n-player games of incomplete information with continuous action spaces. The two classes are defined by differences in the payoff and behaviour of the weakest type: the lowest value bidder or highest cost firm. We show that in ``weakly...

This paper applies recent advances in the theory of learning to the analysis of consumer behaviour in a dynamic duopoly. Nash equilibrium play is characterised when consumers learn adaptively about the relative quality of the two products. A constrast is made between belief-based and...

If individuals care about their status, defined as their rank in the distribution of consumption of one "positional" good, then the consumer's problem is strategic as her utility depends on the consumption choices of others. In the symmetric Nash equilibrium, each individual spends an...

This paper applies recent advances in the theory of learning to the analysis of consumer behaviour, in the context of a market with a dominant firm and a competitive fringe. Dynamically optimal pricing for the dominant firm is characterised when consumers learn adaptively about the relative...

In many markets it is possible to find rival sellers charging different prices for the same good. Earlier research has explained this phenomenon by demonstrating the existence of dispersed price equilibria when consumers must make use of costly search to discover prices. Taking as a starting...