"Fair" policies for the coffee trade - protecting people or biodiversity?

We investigate the role that economic instruments can play in the eradication of poverty and preservation of biodiversity in agroforestry management in coffee production. Most of the world's coffee producers live in poverty and manage agroecosystems in regions that culturally and biologically are among the most diverse on the globe. Despite the relatively recent finding that bees can augment pollination and boost coffee crop yields substantially, the short-term revenues to be had from intense monoculture drive land-use decisions that destroy forest strips serving as habitats for pollinating insects. Our study investigates the possibility of multiple equilibria in the adoption of technology in coffee production; farmers specialize in environmentally detrimental (sun-grown) or sustainable (shade-grown) farming or both practices co-exist. We calibrate an empirical model to characterize the equilibria and investigate the ecological and economic impacts of alternative policy instruments, among these protection fees, price premiums and a minimum wage

Fair policies for the coffee trade - protecting people or biodiversity?

We investigate the role that economic instruments can play in the eradication of poverty and preservation of biodiversity in agroforestry management in coffee production. Most of the world's coffee producers live in poverty and manage agro-ecosystems in regions that culturally and biologically are among the most diverse on the globe. Despite the relatively recent finding that bees can augment pollination and boost coffee crop yields substantially, the short-term revenues to be had from intense monoculture drive land-use decisions that destroy forest strips serving as habitats for pollinating insects. Our study investigates the possibility of multiple equilibria in the adoption of technology in coffee production; farmers specialize in environmentally detrimental (sun-grown) or sustainable (shade-grown)farming or both practices co-exist. We calibrate an empirical model to characterize the equilibria and investigate the ecological and economic impacts of alternative policy instruments, among these protection fees, price premiums and a minimum wage.Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Security and Poverty,

Affine equations as dynamic variables to obtain economic equilibria

This thesis studies how economic equilibria can be reached with limited information by adjusting affine equations, and how collusion in oligopolistic markets can be maintained with affine reaction strategies. The first question is considered for exchange economies, contracting problems, and a two-party negotiation support method. The main contributions are new ways to reach and maintain equilibria. For exchange economies the thesis shows that a modification of fixed-point iteration converges globally under conditions that are remarkably close to those required for the continuous time tâtonnement process presented by Arrow, Block, and Hurwicz. For the constraint proposal method for two-party negotiations this thesis provides answers for three major questions: does the method produce Pareto-optimal points, does it lead to a problem that has a solution, and can the solutions be found with fixed-point iteration. The thesis also shows that the complete information equilibrium of a contract design problem can be reached by adjusting the contract with fixed-point iteration. Finally, the thesis formulates a simple dynamic counterpart of a static reaction strategy by D. K. Osborne in a repeated oligopoly game with discounting. It is proven that these strategies lead to a subgame perfect equilibrium when the possible deviations are bounded and the proportional reaction strategies have sufficiently large slopes.reviewe

Allocating Rights to Mine Blocks

This paper studies mechanisms for allocating rights to forge new blocks on a blockchain. The proof of work contest (PoW) where all block generators, or miners, compete for finding the next block is characterized. The central feature of the PoW contest is that no miner has an incentive to participate with multiple identities, a property called sybil proofness. There are several alternatives for the PoW that involve payments and messaging between the miners and the protocol, features that are not used in the PoW contest. A class of mechanisms that generalizes the proof of stake procedure is introduced for allocating multiple rights to carry out the mining of blocks. These mechanisms are characterized by a set of elementary properties. Auctioning the rights to add blocks into a blockchain is also considered. </p

Subgame Perfect Equilibria in Continuous-Time Repeated Games

This paper considers subgame perfect equilibria of continuous-time repeated games with perfect monitoring when immediate reactions to deviations are allowed. The set of subgame perfect equilibrium payoffs is shown to be a fixed-point of a set-valued operator introduced in the paper. For a large class of discrete time games the closure of this set corresponds to the limit payoffs of  when the discount factors converge to one. It is shown that in the continuous-time setup pure strategies are sufficient for obtaining all equilibrium payoffs supported by the players' minimax values. Moreover, the equilibrium payoff set is convex and satisfies monotone comparative statics when the ratios of players' discount rates increase.</p

A note on Nash equilibrium and fixed point theorems

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Do people prefer cycling policy aiming at extending or saving lives? : An experimental survey study

We investigated the preference between transport policies aiming at extending vs. saving lives. In a 2 x 2 experimental survey study participants randomly received one of four possible policy combinations. The saving lives policy included saving five (250 life-years saved) or ten (500 life-years saved) lives of cyclists who are about 30 years of age. The extending lives policy through the promotion of cycling and associated health benefits was set to extend lives by two ratios (10:1 or 20:1) in relation to life-years saved of the life-saving strategy. Participants were representative of Finnish-speaking residents older than 15 years (N = 1025). In total, 45.5% of the participants preferred a policy aimed at saving lives, 36% preferred an extending lives policy, and 18.2% were undecided. These figures remained essentially the same independent of the benefit-to-cost ratio of cycling (in terms of saved life years) and whether the saving life policy meant saving five or ten lives. Women and the elderly preferred a policy aimed at saving lives, while cyclists preferred an extending lives policy. The results are discussed in the context of Vision Zero and a new transport paradigm called Vision Plus.Peer reviewe

Do people prefer cycling policy aiming at extending or saving lives? An experimental survey study

We investigated the preference between transport policies aiming at extending vs. saving lives. In a 2 × 2 experimental survey study participants randomly received one of four possible policy combinations. The saving lives policy included saving five (250 life-years saved) or ten (500 life-years saved) lives of cyclists who are about 30 years of age. The extending lives policy through the promotion of cycling and associated health benefits was set to extend lives by two ratios (10:1 or 20:1) in relation to life-years saved of the life-saving strategy. Participants were representative of Finnish-speaking residents older than 15 years (N = 1025). In total, 45.5% of the participants preferred a policy aimed at saving lives, 36% preferred an extending lives policy, and 18.2% were undecided. These figures remained essentially the same independent of the benefit-to-cost ratio of cycling (in terms of saved life years) and whether the saving life policy meant saving five or ten lives. Women and the elderly preferred a policy aimed at saving lives, while cyclists preferred an extending lives policy. The results are discussed in the context of Vision Zero and a new transport paradigm called Vision Plus.</p

An Iterative Tatonnement Process

A discrete time tatonnement process is presented for reaching an equilibrium of an exchange economy. The process is based on updating the prices in proportion to excess demands of the commodities such that the new prices are positive and their changes are bounded. Global convergence conditions for the process are given and convergence is shown when the excess demand function has the gross substitute property and curves appropriately around the equilibrium. Furthermore, this paper introduces a new, second order, form of the weak axiom of revealed preferences; a condition which also implies convergence. It is shown that this condition holds when the excess demand function is strongly monotone