Overconfidence Can Improve an Agent's Relative and Absolute Performance in Contests

This paper suggests a potential rationale for the recent empirical finding that overconfident agents tend to self-select into more competitive environments (e.g. Dohmen and Falk, forthcoming). In particular, it shows that moderate overconfidence in a contest can improve the agent's performance relative to an unbiased opponent and can even lead to an advantage for the overconfident agent in absolute terms

Lebesgue's Density Theorem and definable selectors for ideals

We introduce a notion of density point and prove results analogous to Lebesgue's density theorem for various well-known ideals on Cantor space and Baire space. In fact, we isolate a class of ideals for which our results hold. In contrast to these results, we show that there is no reasonably definable selector that chooses representatives for the equivalence relation on the Borel sets of having countable symmetric difference. In other words, there is no notion of density which makes the ideal of countable sets satisfy an analogue to the density theorem. The proofs of the positive results use only elementary combinatorics of trees, while the negative results rely on forcing arguments.Comment: 28 pages; minor corrections and a new introductio

Overconfidence Can Improve an Agent's Relative and Absolute Performance in Contests

This paper suggests a potential rationale for the recent empirical finding that overconfident agents tend to self-select into more competitive environments (e.g. Dohmen and Falk, forthcoming). In particular, it shows that moderate overconfidence in a contest can improve the agent's performance relative to an unbiased opponent and can even lead to an advantage for the overconfident agent in absolute terms.Overconfidence; Contests

Folding and unfolding of a triple-branch DNA molecule with four conformational states

Single-molecule experiments provide new insights into biological processes hitherto not accessible by measurements performed on bulk systems. We report on a study of the kinetics of a triple-branch DNA molecule with four conformational states by pulling experiments with optical tweezers and theoretical modelling. Three distinct force rips associated with different transitions between the conformational states are observed in the folding and unfolding trajectories. By applying transition rate theory to a free energy model of the molecule, probability distributions for the first rupture forces of the different transitions are calculated. Good agreement of the theoretical predictions with the experimental findings is achieved. Furthermore, due to our specific design of the molecule, we found a useful method to identify permanently frayed molecules by estimating the number of opened basepairs from the measured force jump values.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figure

Long games and sigma-projective sets

We prove a number of results on the determinacy of $\sigma$-projective sets of reals, i.e., those belonging to the smallest pointclass containing the open sets and closed under complements, countable unions, and projections. We first prove the equivalence between $\sigma$-projective determinacy and the determinacy of certain classes of games of variable length ${<}\omega^2$ (Theorem 2.4). We then give an elementary proof of the determinacy of $\sigma$-projective sets from optimal large-cardinal hypotheses (Theorem 4.4). Finally, we show how to generalize the proof to obtain proofs of the determinacy of $\sigma$-projective games of a given countable length and of games with payoff in the smallest $\sigma$-algebra containing the projective sets, from corresponding assumptions (Theorems 5.1 and 5.4)

Expanding, Complementing, or Substituting Multilateralism? EU Preferential Trade Agreements in the Migration Regime Complex

Intense pressure for international solutions and weak support for multilateral cooperation have led the EU to increasingly rely on its strongest foreign policy tool in the pursuit of migration policy goals: preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Starting from the fragmentary architecture of the migration regime complex we examine how the relevant content of the EU PTAs relates to multilateral institutions. Depending on the constellation of policy objectives, EU competence, and international interdependence, we propose a set of hypotheses regarding the conditions under which EU bilateral outreach via PTAs expands, complements, or substitutes international norms. Based on an original dataset of migration provisions in all EU PTAs signed between 1960 and 2020, we find that the migration policy content in EU PTAs expands or complements the objectives of multilateral institutions only to a very limited extent. Instead, the predominant constellation is one of substitution in which the EU uses its PTAs to promote migration policy objectives that depart from those of existing multilateral institutions

Third country effects of fiscal devaluations

We analyze fiscal devaluation in a three-country model. The introduction of the third country, outside a monetary union, increases the expansionary effect of fiscal devaluation and the second country of the monetary union experiences a boom instead of a recession. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe