Reputation and cooperation in the repeated second-price auctions

This paper shows that there are strong reputational effects in a general class of second price auctions, including single-unit English and Vickrey auctions with interdependent values, multiunit ascending and uniform price auctions and a War of Attrition. It is based on recent results on reputation with symmetric discounting. If a reputation is one sided and bidders are patient, the bidder with reputation must obtain most of the surplus in the sequence of auctions, the other bidder and the seller get very little. If the reputation is two-sided then the bidders engage in a game akin to War of Attrition. The resulting payoff is very low for the bidders and very high for the seller. In any case, Folk Theorem fails: collusion in the second price auctions is impossible. The predictions of the model are that the path of prices is declining, in fact prices in the early auctions should reach levels that are higher than the value of the object and there should be a set of strong bidders emerging after a few auctions. A recent series of auctions of spectrum for UMTS services in Europe seems to fit both the assumptions and predictions of the model.<br/

The internationalization of the Polish academic profession. A comparative European approach

The internationalization of the Polish academic profession is studied quantitatively in a comparative European context. A micro-level (individual) approach relying on primary data collected in a consistent, internationally comparable format is used (N = 17 211 cases). The individual academic is the unit of analysis, rather than a national higher education system or an individual institution. The authors\u27 study shows that research productivity of Polish academics (consistent with European patterns) is strongly correlated with international collaboration: the average productivity of Polish academics involved in international collaboration ("internationalists") is consistently higher than that of Polish "locals" in all academic fields. Polish academics are less internationalized in research than the European average but the research productivity of Polish "internationalists" is much higher than that of Polish "locals". The impact of international collaboration on average productivity is much higher in Poland than in the other European countries studied, a finding with important policy implications. (DIPF/Orig.

Mass media: constrained information and heterogenous public

This paper investigates how mass medium (sender) provides information to readers or viewers (receivers) who have diverse interests. The problem of the sender comes from the fact that there is a constraint on how much information can be delivered.It is shown that the sender can optimally provide information that is somewhat useful to all agents, but not perfect to anybody in particular. Because all receivers observe only one coarse signal delivered by the same mass medium their behaviour is perfectly correlated, positively or negatively, even if the underlying states of nature are independent. In addition, if the correlation between states of nature of any two players is sufficiently high, their behaviour is positively correlated. However, we may have a situation where all agents are symmetric, the correlation of states of nature is negative (positive), but the behaviour is positively (negatively) correlated. The model can be used to explain the role of mass media in creating comovement among various industries during business cycle, or financial contagion

Repeating voting with complete information

A committee is choosing from two alternatives. If required supermajority is not reached, voting is repeated indefinitely, although there is a cost of delay. Under suitable assumptions the equilibrium analysis provides a sharp prediction. The result can be interpreted as a generalization of the seminal median voter theorem known from the simple majority case. If supermajority is required instead, then the power to select the outcome moves from the median voter to the more extreme voters. Normative analysis indicates that the simple majority is not constrained efficient because it does not reflect the strengths of voters' opinion. Even if unanimity is a bad voting rule, voting rules close to unanimity may be efficient. The more likely it is to have a very many almost indifferent voters and some very opinionated ones, the more stringent supermajority is required for efficienc

Competition among mass media

This paper investigates how mass media provide information to readers or viewers who have diverse interests. The problem of a mass medium comes from the fact that there is a constraint on how much information can be delivered. It is shown that the mass medium optimally provides information that is somewhat useful to all agents, but not perfect to anybody in particular. This benchmark model is then used to investigate competition among mass media with differentiated products. In the equilibrium of the example studied, mass media differentiate their news fully, as if they were monopolies on the subset of readers to which they tailor their news. However, prices are disciplined by competition. <br><br> Keywords; mass media, product differentiation, news, cheap talk, quantization

Nierówności w produkcji wiedzy naukowej – rola najbardziej produktywnych naukowców w 11 krajach europejskich

In this paper, we focus on a rare scholarly theme of highly productive academics, statistically confirming their pivotal role in knowledge production across all 11 systems studies. The upper 10 percent of highly productive academics in 11 European countries studied (N = 17,211), provide on average almost half of all academic knowledge production. In contrast to dominating bibliometric studies of research productivity, we focus on academic attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions as predictors of becoming research top performers across European systems. Our paper provides a (large-scale and cross-country) corroboration of the systematic inequality in knowledge production, for the first time argued for by Alfred Lotka (1926) and Derek de Solla Price (1963). We corroborate of the deep academic inequality in science and explore this segment of the academic profession. The European research elite is a highly homogeneous group of academics whose high research performance is driven by structurally similar factors, mostly individual rather than institutional. Highly productive academics are similar from a cross-national perspective and they substantially differ intra-nationally from their lower-performing colleagues.W niniejszym tekście skupiamy się na nierównościach w produkcji wiedzy naukowej i pokazujemy, że rozkład indywidualnych wzorców produktywności badawczej w systemach europejskich jest uderzająco podobny mimo odmiennych krajowych tradycji akademickich. Naukowcy znajdujący się na szczycie skali produktywności (górne 10% badaczy, którzy zajmują najwyższe miejsca pod względem produktywności publikacyjnej w 11 krajach europejskich) dostarczają średnio niemal połowę całej produkcji naukowej w swoich krajach. Nie inaczej jest w Polsce. Wychodząc od podobieństwa wzorców rozkładu produktywności w systemach europejskich, stawiamy ogólne pytania badawcze: kim są najbardziej produktywni naukowcy oraz jakiego rodzaju instytucjonalne i indywidualne czynniki zwiększają szanse na znalezienie się w ich gronie? Najbardziej produktywni badacze jako osobny sektor profesji akademickiej niezwykle rzadko dotąd stawali się przedmiotem badań naukowych. Ze względu na to, że 1/10 europejskich naukowców produkuje niemal połowę wszystkich wytworów badawczych (a 1/20 wytwarza niemal 1/3), ta grupa zasługuje na większą uwagę. Za cel stawiam sobie zbadanie wąsko rozumianej „europejskiej elity badawczej” z międzynarodowej perspektywy porównawczej. Podczas gdy większość wcześniejszych badań opiera się na modelach wykorzystujących regresję liniową, stosowanych do badania produktywności badawczej, w tym tekście wykorzystujemy model regresji logistycznej, poszukując właściwych dla danych krajów predyktorów stawania się produktywnym badaczem. Podstawowe dane analizowane w tym tekście pochodzą z dwóch dużych globalnych i europejskich projektów badawczych dotyczących profesji akademickiej (Changing Academic Profession – CAP oraz Academic Profession in Europe – EUROAC), obejmujących próbę liczącą 17 211 obserwacji. Dane odnoszą się do zachowań i postaw naukowców oraz produktywności badawczej subpopulacji najbardziej produktywnych naukowców (górne 10%, n = 1583), w odróżnieniu do subpopulacji pozostałych 90% naukowców (n = 12 325); w obu przypadkach zbiorowością są wyłącznie naukowcy, którzy zadeklarowali zaangażowanie w prowadzenie badań naukowych

The Globalization of Science: The Increasing Power of Individual Scientists

National science systems have become embedded in global science and countries do everything they can to harness global knowledge to national economic needs. However, accessing and using the riches of global knowledge can occur only through scientists. Consequently, the research power of nations relies on the research power of individual scientists. Their capacity to collaborate internationally and to tap into the global networked science is key. The constantly evolving, bottom-up, autonomous, self-regulating, and self-focused nature of global science requires deeper understanding; and the best way to understand its dynamics is to understand what drives academic scientists in their work. We are particularly interested in the contrast between global science as a largely privately governed and normatively self-regulating institution and global science as a contributor to global collective public goods. The idea that science remains a state-driven rather than curiosity-driven is difficult to sustain. In empirical terms, we describe the globalization of science using selected publication, collaboration, and citation data from 2000-2020. The globalization of science implies two different processes in two different system types: the growth of science in the Western world is almost entirely attributable to internationally co-authored publications; its growth in the developing world, in contrast, is driven by both internationally co-authored and domestic publications. Global network science opens incredible opportunities to new arrivals—countries as well as institutions and research teams. The global system is embedded in the rules created by scientists themselves and maintained as a self-organizing system and nation-states have another major level to consider in their science policies: the global level. Globalization of science provides more agency, autonomy, collegiality, and self-regulation to scientists embedded in national science structures and involved in global networks