Modelling the Economic Interaction of Agents with Diverse Abilities to Recognise Equilibrium Patterns

We model differences among agents in their ability to recognise temporal patterns of prices. Using the concept of DeBruijin sequences in two dynamic models of markets, we demonstrate the existence of equilibria in which prices fluctuate in a pattern that is independent of the fundamentals and that can be recognised only by the more competent agents.DeBruijin, price fluctuations, sunspots, bounded rationality, bounded recall.

Price Competition under Limited Comparability

This paper studies market competition when firms can influence consumers' ability to compare market alternatives, through their choice of price "formats". We introduce random graphs as a tool for modelling limited comparability of formats. Our main results concern the interaction between firms' equilibrium price and format decisions and its implications for industry profits and consumer switching rates. We show that narrow regulatory interventions that aim to facilitate comparisons may have adverse consequences for consumer welfare. Finally, we argue that our limited-comparability approach provides a new perspective into the phenomenon of product differentiation.price competition, industrial organization, limited comparability, bounded rationality, framing, consumer protection, product differentiation, complexity

Coalition formation under power relations

We analyze the structure of a society driven by power relations. Our model has an exogenous power relation over the set of coalitions of agents. Agents determine the social order by forming coalitions. The power relations determine the ranking of agents in society for any social order. We study a cooperative game in partition function form and introduce a solution concept, the stable social order, which exists and includes the core. We investigate a refinement, the strongly stable social order, which incorporates a notion of robustness to variable power relations. We provide a complete characterization of strongly stable social orders.Power, coalition formation, stability

Correlation misperception in choice

We present a decision-theoretic analysis of an agent’s understanding of the interdependencies in her choices. We provide the foundations for a simple and flexible model that allows the misperception of correlated risks. We introduce a framework in which the decision maker chooses a portfolio of assets among which she may misperceive the joint returns, and present simple axioms equivalent to a representation in which she attaches a probability to each possible joint distribution over returns and then maximizes subjective expected utility using her (possibly misspecified) beliefs

The strategic dis/advantage of voting early

Under sequential voting, voting late enables conditioning on which candidates are viable, while voting early can influence the field of candidates. But the latter effect can be harmful: shrinking the field increases not only the likelihood that future voters vote for one's favorite candidate, but also that they vote for an opponent. Specifically, if one's favorite candidate is significantly better than all others then early voting is disadvantageous and all equilibria are equivalent to simultaneous voting. Conversely, when some other candidate is almost as good then any Markov, symmetric, anonymous equilibrium involves sequential voting (and differs from simultaneous voting)