Game-theoretic foundations of monetary equilibrium : [Version 30 September 2013]

Monetary theorists have advanced an intriguing notion: we exchange money to make up for a lack of enforcement, when it is difficult to monitor and sanction opportunistic behaviors. We demonstrate that, in fact, monetary equilibrium cannot generally be sustained when monitoring and punishment limitations preclude enforcement — external or not. Simply put, monetary systems cannot operate independently of institutions — formal or informal — designed to monitor behaviors and sanction undesirable ones. This fundamental result is derived by integrating monetary theory with the theory of repeated games, studying monetary equilibrium as the outcome of a matching game with private monitoring

Financial Contagion and Financial Lockdowns

Extreme financial shocks often elicit extraordinary policy interventions that preclude financial activity on a large scale, for example as the 1933 U.S. “bank holiday.” We study these interventions using a random matching framework where the financial contagion process is explicit and the diffusion of the initial shock can be analytically characterized. The study suggests that there is scope for forced closures of individual firms or even economy-wide financial lockdowns only when firms are financially vulnerable and policy institutions are not well-functioning. Here, ordinary policy alone cannot prevent or sufficiently mitigate contagion, while complementing it with a lockdown or individual closures can do so, and improve social welfare if the initial shock is severe but not widespread

The Economic Impact of Lockdowns: A Theoretical Assessment

The sudden appearance of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered extreme and open-ended “lockdowns” to manage the disease. Should these drastic interventions be the blueprint for future epidemics? We construct an analytical framework, based on the theory of random matching, which makes explicit how epidemics spread through economic activity. Imposing lockdowns by assumption prevents contagion and reduces healthcare costs, but also disrupts income-generation processes. We characterize how lockdowns impact the contagion process and social welfare. Numerical analysis suggests that protracted, open-ended lockdowns are generally suboptimal, bringing into question the policy responses seen in many countries

Cooperation in Indefinitely Repeated Helping Games: Existence and Characterization

Experiments that investigate the spontaneous emergence of money in laboratory societies rely on indefinitely repeated helping games with random matching (Camera et al., 2013; Camera and Casari, 2014). An important open issue is the lack of a general proof of existence of an equilibrium capable of supporting the efficient allocation under private monitoring, without money. Here, we fill this gap by offering a general proof, as well as by characterizing the efficient non-monetary equilibrium. This technique can be extended to study games with simultaneous actions

Cooperation in Temporary Partnerships

The literature on cooperation in infinitely repeated Prisoner’s Dilemmas covers the extreme opposites of the matching spectrum: partners, a player’s opponent never changes, and strangers, a player’s opponent randomly changes in every period. Here, we extend the analysis to settings where the opponent changes, but not in every period. In these temporary partnerships, players can deter some deviations by directly sanctioning their partner. Hence, relaxing the extreme assumption of one-period matchings can support some cooperation also off equilibrium because a class of strategies emerges that are less extreme than the typical “grim” strategy. We establish conditions supporting full cooperation as a subgame perfect equilibrium under a social norm that complements direct sanctions with a cyclical community sanction. Though this strategy less effectively incentivizes cooperation, it more effectively incentivizes punishment after a deviation, hence, can be preferable to the grim strategy under certain conditions

In-group bias in preferences for redistribution: a survey experiment in Italy

Using a new survey and experimental data, we investigate how information on inequality and immigration affect preferences for redistribution in Italy. Our randomized treatments show that preferences for redistribution are often inelastic to information. However, we find that provision of information on poverty statistics related to the native-immigrant composition of poverty reduces economic in-group bias by affecting exclusionary redistributive preferences: respondents are less likely to support policies which exclude immigrants from access to the welfare state once they learn that immigrants are less represented among the poor and natives are not as poor as they used to believe. Finally, we find some evidence of in-group bias by investigating the presence of heterogeneous treatment effects across groups

Private versus public companies with strategic CSR

AbstractWe analyze the effects of strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on social welfare in an industry where firms are owned by consumers (publicly owned) and CSR commitment takes the form of a fraction of the consumer surplus into the firms' objective function. We compare this market configuration with the standard case of firms owned by entrepreneurs (privately owned). In line with the empirical evidence, consumers' ownership gives an incentive to adopt a socially responsible, welfare improving statute. While privately-owned companies are limited in the level of social concern to implement, publicly-owned companies are not, and CSR is welfare-improving for any level of social concern. Surprisingly, a market configuration of publicly-owned CSR companies decreases welfare compared to an oligopoly of privately-owned CSR companies. The analysis is then extended by considering asymmetric oligopolies with different company types

ANIMALES Y ANIBUENES. LO HUMANO, LO SUBHUMANO, Y LO NO HUMANO

The division between nature and culture, typical of the Western modern thought, has been established as the ontological foundation of racist, sexist and speciesist violence. With the conquest of America in 1492, the possibility of asserting itself in the face of a new alterity was born for Europe. On the one hand, the concept of race , with the purpose of delimiting the order of the human against the order of the subhuman and the non-human. On the other hand, Christian patriarchy is globalized: the burning of witches, on the one hand, and the distinction between woman and female on the other, appear as two of the most notable consequences. Finally, the Cartesian philosophy of the 17th century calls into question the Aristotelian worldview, in force until now, according to which animals have a soul: a nourishing and sensitive soul. The animal turns into a machine.La división entre naturaleza y cultura, típica del pensamiento moderno occidental, se ha constituido como el fundamento ontológico de la violencia racista, machista y especista. Con la conquista de América en el año 1492, nace para Europa la posibilidad de autoafirmarse frente a una nueva alteridad. Por un lado, surge el concepto de raza, con la finalidad de delimitar el orden de lo humano frente al orden de lo subhumano y de lo no humano. Por otro lado, se globaliza el patriarcado cristiano: la quema de brujas, por un lado, y la distinción entre mujer y hembra por el otro, aparecen como dos de las consecuencias más notables. Finalmente, la filosofía cartesiana del siglo XVII pone en tela de juicio la cosmovisión aristotélica, vigente hasta el momento, según la cual los animales poseen alma: un alma nutritiva y sensitiva. El animal se torna en máquina

ambient vibration testing of a monumental fountain by contact and non contact sensing techniques

Abstract Ambient Vibration Testing (AVT) and Operational Modal Analysis (OMA) are widely accepted non-invasive diagnostic tools for investigating the actual dynamic behavior of full scale structures and for extracting useful information for the optimal tuning of numerical models. However, despite many successful applications in the case of bridges and slender buildings, ambient vibration testing is still rarely carried out on historical heritage buildings, with a few documented applications on slender structures such as civic and bell towers. In this paper, the authors aim to investigate the potential of AVT and OMA when applied to unconventional heritage structures. In particular, dynamic testing and operational modal analysis of a monumental fountain, the "Fontana Maggiore", in the City of Perugia, Italy, is presented using data acquired by both contact and non-contact sensing techniques. Results also allow to comment on the most suitable sensing hardware for the considered application