Bidder Collusion

Within the heterogeneous independent private values model, we analyze bidder collusion at first and second price single-object auctions, allowing for within-cartel transfers. Our primary focus is on (i) coalitions that contain a strict subset of all bidders and (ii) collusive mechanisms that do not rely on information from the auctioneer, such as the identity of the winner or the amount paid. To analyze collusion, a richer environment is required than that required to analyze non-cooperative behavior. We must account for the possibility of shill bidders as well as mechanism payment rules that may depend on the reports of cartel members or their bids at the auction. We show there are cases in which a coalition at a first price auction can produce no gain for the coalition members beyond what is attainable from non-cooperative play. In contrast, a coalition at a second price auction captures the entire collusive gain. For collusion to be effective at a first price auction we show that the coalition must submit two bids that are different but close to one another, a finding that has important empirical implicationsauctions, collusion, bidding rings, shill

Should Exact Index Numbers Have Standard Errors? Theory and Application to Asian Growth

In this paper we derive the standard error of a price index when both prices and tastes or technology are treated as stochastic. Changing tastes or technology are a reason for the weights in the price index to be treated as stochastic, which can interact with the stochastic prices themselves. We derive results for the constant elasticity of substitution expenditure function (with Sato-Vartia price index), and also the translog function (with T””rnqvist price index), which proves to be more general and easier to implement. In our application to Asian growth, we construct standard errors on the total factor productivity (TFP) estimates of Hsieh (2002) for Singapore. We find that TFP growth is insignificantly different from zero in any year, but cumulative TFP over fifteen years is indeed positive.

Of, By, and For Seniors: Japanese Seniors Co-operatives

Koreikyo, or Seniors Co-operative, is a hybrid consumer and worker co-operative of, by, and for seniors. Its mission is to help seniors remain in their homes as long as possible. The co-op gets frail seniors the help they need to stay independent and helps able seniors—who often face age discrimination—find work that pays, keeps them active, and adds meaning to their lives. Members can both provide services and receive them

Giving a Gift to the Hamlet: Rank, Solidarity, and Productive Exchange in Rural Japan

This paper examines the strategic pursuit of family well-being and village status under conditions of overt co-operation and covert competition at the buraku level of social organization through the analysis of a pattern of customary gift-giving that developed after World War II in several neighboring farm hamlets in Aichi Prefecture.1 The custom described here consists of the regular and systematic giving of gifts directly to the hamlet itself by all member families on a limited number of sharply defined occasions. By means of their gifts, member families overtly demonstrate solidarity with the hamlet as a whole while simultaneously giving covert expression to competition for relative position in the hamlet social hierarchy. The significance of this custom lies in the transparency with which it opens to view the complex inter-relationship of the three fundamental components of hamlet social relations--rank, solidarity, and productive exchange--and the social dislocations strategic manipulation of these elements entails

Moses, Oedipus, Structuralism, and History

Myths emerge in consciousness as solutions to problems of existence among those who find it worthwhile to reproduce those myths. The many variants that are the myth, appearing as combinations and recombinations of diverse and changing components in an unchanging structure of relationships, are as many possible solutions, more stimuli still for their audiences\u27 imaginations. By the end of the fifth century B.C. for both the Athenians and the Israelites the paramount problem had become the preservation of a form of suzerainty, sociocultural continuity without sovereignty. The myths of Oedipus and Moses converge in their structures at this historical moment on one particular solution to this problem. The answer both give, in the languages and symbols of their respective cultures, is deliberately and self-consciously preserve and reproduce the culture that bears this myth. Value this culture more than a share in your conqueror\u27s sovereignty. They leave implicit the continuation If you do so, someday you may be able to regain your own sovereignty. It is my purpose to show by means of parallel analyses of these two myths how they achieve the effect they aim at through the structuring of complex symbols in narrative form

Assessing Responsiveness to RET by Individuals with Chronic Non-fluent Aphasia: A Clinical Perspective

Response elaboration training (RET) is a “loose training” program designed to increase the length and information content of verbal responses of patients with aphasia (Kearns, 1985). Patients have responded robustly to RET regardless of severity level or type of aphasia (Wambaugh, Wright, and Nessler, 2012). One difficulty faced by clinicians seeking to use RET is participants in research studies have usually been treated at a frequency and for a duration that far exceeds standard clinical practice. In order to examine RET from a “clinical perspective,” the researchers carried out a selective meta-analysis of RET focusing on a “window of treatment” that would be commensurate with standard clinical practice

Will treatment facilitate learning of a problem solving strategy by persons with Alzheimer’s disease?

Deficits in problem solving are a prominent feature of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The present study aimed to determine whether or not persons with AD could learn to use a strategy for solving problems. Four individuals with AD were taught to use a reduction strategy to solve twenty questions problems (20Q). Although results of this study indicate that individuals did not learn to use the stressed strategy, participants did improve their ability to solve problems using strategies already familiar to them. This suggests that treatment should focus on skills the person with AD is already using rather than teaching new strategies