The aim of this brief paper is to interpret al Qaeda’s modus operandi in the light of the economic theory of contests. The main idea expressed here is that al Qaeda can be considered as a contest-designer rewarding an indivisible prize. Affiliated groups compete with each other to win the...

This review article introduces and evaluates various ways to aggregate probabilistic opinions of different individuals. For each of these three ways, an axiomatic characterization result is presented (a new one in the case of multiplicative pooling). The three ways satisfy different axioms and...

I consider a model in which an autocrat can be removed from power either through a military coup or a revolution by the citizens. In the event of a revolt by the citizens, the military may choose to support the autocrat to crush the revolt or play a passive role. The autocrat determines the...

The literature on democracy and corruption is inconclusive on the effect of democracy on corruption. We intend to supplement this void by arguing that an interaction between democracy and unemployment may exist in shaping the de facto corruption levels. This paper examines whether such...

Aristotle’s economics of exchange: (a) Ideally, reciprocal justice in bilateral bargaining to minimize expenditure given utility levels results in Pareto-efficient, envy-free, equitable outcomes. (b) Practically, bargaining under the threat or actual recontracting may act as a surrogate of...

This paper belongs to my research program on violence and terrorism started in 1993, as a consequence of the growing concern regarding the increase in Colombian violence, and especially for its escalation during the 1990’s. After 14 years of research, particularly after developing a model of...

How can different individuals' probability functions on a given σ-algebra of events be aggregated into a collective probability function? Classic approaches to this problem often require `event-wise independence': the collective probability for each event should depend only on the individuals'...

One of the problems which sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries are confronted with is the low level of investment. Yet, the theory of capital tells us that it is impossible to envisage development without a considerable accumulation of capital. An important channel through which those countries...

The history of the Netherlands reveals major shifts from centralisation of government tasks towards decentralisation and vice versa. In the seventeenth century, the Republic of United Provinces was the first federal state in modern history. Many transformations later the Kingdom of the...

This paper provides an experimental test of the traveller’s dilemma. Our investigation aims to address the research hypothesis that introducing a reference point à la Schelling (set equal to the Pareto optimal solution) might drive people away from rationality even when the size of the...