The Fundamental Problem of Philosophy: Its Point

The fundamental problem of philosophy is whether doing it has any point, since if it does not have any point, there is no reason to do it. It is suggested that the intrinsic point of doing philosophy is to establish a rational consensus about what the answers to its main questions are. But it seems that this cannot be accomplished because philosophical arguments are bound to be inconclusive. Still, philosophical research generates an increasing number of finer grained distinctions in terms of which we try to conceptualize reality, and this is a sort of progress. But if, as is likely, our arguments do not suffice to decide between these alternatives, our personalities might slip in to do so. Our philosophy will then express our personality. This could provide philosophy with a point for us. If some of our conclusions have practical import, philosophy could have the further point of giving us something by which we can live

The Incorrect Usage of Propositional Logic in Game Theory: The Case of Disproving Oneself

Recently, we had to realize that more and more game theoretical articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals with severe logical deficiencies. In particular, we observed that the indirect proof was not applied correctly. These authors confuse between statements of propositional logic. They apply an indirect proof while assuming a prerequisite in order to get a contradiction. For instance, to find out that "if A then B" is valid, they suppose that the assumptions "A and not B" are valid to derive a contradiction in order to deduce "if A then B". Hence, they want to establish the equivalent proposition "A and not B implies A and not A" to conclude that "if A then B" is valid. In fact, they prove that a truth implies a falsehood, which is a wrong statement. As a consequence, "if A then B" is invalid, disproving their own results. We present and discuss some selected cases from the literature with severe logical flaws, invalidating the articles.Comment: 16 pages, 2 table

On the Single-Valuedness of the Pre-Kernel

Based on results given in the recent book by Meinhardt (2013), which presents a dual characterization of the pre-kernel by a finite union of solution sets of a family of quadratic and convex objective functions, we could derive some results related to the uniqueness of the pre-kernel. Rather than extending the knowledge of game classes for which the pre-kernel consists of a single point, we apply a different approach. We select a game from an arbitrary game class with a single pre-kernel element satisfying the non-empty interior condition of a payoff equivalence class, and then establish that the set of related and linear independent games which are derived from this pre-kernel point of the default game replicates this point also as its sole pre-kernel element. In the proof we apply results and techniques employed in the above work. Namely, we prove in a first step that the linear mapping of a pre-kernel element into a specific vector subspace of balanced excesses is a singleton. Secondly, that there cannot exist a different and non-transversal vector subspace of balanced excesses in which a linear transformation of a pre-kernel element can be mapped. Furthermore, we establish that on the restricted subset on the game space that is constituted by the convex hull of the default and the set of related games, the pre-kernel correspondence is single-valued, and therefore continuous. Finally, we provide sufficient conditions that preserve the pre-nucleolus property for related games even when the default game has not a single pre-kernel point.Comment: 24 pages, 2 table

Endogenous Discounting via Wealth, Twin-Peaks and the Role of Technology

The articles gives new answers to the following questions : One, what can be potential source of the twin-peaks of economi growth ? Two, why were some of the countries that were believed to belong to the group of low steady state countries (like Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, etc) able to reach a convergence path which led them to a high steady state ? We endogenize the time preference rate via a broad measure of wealth and provide empirical evidence that wealth affects the discount rate negatively. We provide sufficient conditions for multiplicity of equilibria and demonstrate how endogenous discounting via wealth leads to the twin-peaks of economic growth. We prove that improvements in technology can help avoid the Twin-peaks.Endogenous time preference, Recursive utility, Twin-peaks of economic growth

On optimality, endogeneous discounting and wealth accumulation

We endogenize the discount rate via a broad measure of wealth and provide empirical evidence that wealth the discount rate negatively. We demonstrate that the Pontryagin conditions require positive felicity for intuitive results, whereas the concavity of the Hamiltonian requires negative felicity for optimality. This dilemna also holds for the endogenizations of Obstfeld (1990) and followers. We solve the model with positive felicity and resolve when optimality is possible. We discuss the impact on technological change, savings and convergence which are more in line with empirics. Finally, we discuss time consistency of a planner who cannot predict his preferences.Endogenous time preference, Stability, Optimal growth, Recursive utility

Monopolistic Competition and Costs in the Health Care Sector

Competition among health insurers is widely considered to be a means of enhancing efficiency and containing costs in the health care system. In this paper, it is argued that this could be unsuccessful since health care providers hold a strong position on the market for health care services. Physicians exert a type of monopolistic power which can be described by Chamberlin’s model of monopolistic competition. If many health insurers compete with one another, they cannot counterbalance the strong bargaining position of the physicians. Thus, health care expenditure is higher, financing either extra profits for physicians or a higher number of them. In addition, health insurers do not have an incentive to contract selectively with health care providers as long as there are no price differences between physicians. A monopolistic health insurer is able to counterbalance the strong position of physicians and to achieve lower costs.health care system, monopolistic competition, health insurance, costs

The dynamics of Environmentalism and the Environment

We study the relationship between environmental preferences and the environment. Preferences are transmitted intergenerationally and through social interactions, where we assume that agents are more likely to adopt environmental preferences the larger the amount of pollution. In the basic setting we find that both converge non-monotonically towards an interior steady state. When including technical change we notice that there will be no change in the steady state level of the environment unless technical change is sufficiently strong, which stands in stark contrast to the literature. Upon introducing environmental laws we find that these may lead to a virtually pollution-free environment. This happens if environmental laws are implemented when public support is strong enough. 1 Department of Economics, Ecole Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex, France. email: [email protected]. tel: 0033 169333038. The author kindly acknowledges the helpful comments by two anonymous referees.