Efficient upgrading in network goods : is commitment always good?

The frequency of upgrades in technology markets is not socially optimal when the quality improvement is negligible and smaller than the adoption cost of the new product. In monopolies, the literature has identifed a suff cient factor for efficient upgrading: the firms power to commit to whether it will upgrade or not in the future. This is not true when an entry threat applies. In fact, it could even be that commitment is a factor of inefficiency when the market is open to competition. As shown in this paper, the incumbentís commitment adds an additional source of inefficiency while an entry threat could dissolve social optimality

Asymptotic Dimension of Finitely Presented Groups

It is proven that if a finitely presented group is one ended it has asymptotic dimension bigger than one. It follows that finitely presented groups with asdim 1 are virtually free. A counterexample is given for the finitely generated case.Comment: 7 pages,no figure

ON A LOW-COMPETITIVENESS COUNTRY JOINING THE EUROZONE: ARE THERE LESSONS FROM GREECE? CES Open Forum Series 2018-2019

Seven remaining states are presently on the Eurozone’s enlargement agenda: Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. Except Sweden, all these countries tend to have low competitiveness not only relative to Germany but also to most of the Eurozone countries (especially, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands). For countries adopting the euro, issues of political economy may have a decisive effect on the eventual outcome and largely determine their economic prospects within the Eurozone. The Greek experience shows that the intensity of partisan strife is certainly an important element to be taken into account in a far from easy assessment of how entry will likely affect the country's economic progress. The crucial issue that needs to be considered is whether entry will improve or worsen the prospects for a substantial gain in competitiveness. It is the assessment of how entry will affect the forces favoring reforms relative to those opposing them that should ultimately determine the decision to opt for early or delayed entry

Government expenditures as a citizens'evaluation of public output : public choice and the benefit principle of taxation

Combining elements from the theories of public choice and benefit taxation, the author develops a framework in which private citizens can evaluate public activities. Why, and under what circumstances, do bureaucrats increase the size of the public sector and the amount of public spending in their own self interest? What does the private sector think public output should be, what is actual public output, and how does the private sector evaluate that output? The author applies the theoretical results of an attempt to answer these questions in four Central European countries (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia), using actual data for 1989-91 and projections for 1992. Interpreting indirect evidence, he shows that the private sector would prefer less government activity in all countries, from a low of 5 percent less public spending (in Poland) to a high of one-third less (in Slovenia). If those governments were to follow those guidelines, their spending-to-GDP ratios would more closely resemble the 1987-89 average for a selected group of European market economies. The author also introduces a more rigorous, if not necessarily more objective, approach to determining optimal government spending. This approach requires little information, but uses a static model and requires faith in the direction of causality for some key variables. To the extent that one can accept those limitations, the model may be a useful operational tool in public spending evaluation.Public Sector Economics&Finance,National Governance,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Fiscal&Monetary Policy

Public output and private decisions : conceptual issues in the evaluation of Government activities and their implications for fiscal policy

In this essay, the author explores theoretical concepts behind the current debate on government growth, public sector inefficiency, and the role of fiscal policy with a view to raising the most important issues relevant for fiscal policy. He examines theories of public sector growth, the evaluation of benefits from government spending, and the response of the private sector to government activities. Three principal reasons have been suggested to explain public sector growth: conscious government choices, political pressure from interest groups, and the self-interest of bureaucracies. One may ask: is the growth of the public sector a response to public demand or the result of government waste and inefficiency? In terms of the agent-principal theory, bureaucrats who are supposed to serve as agents for citizens may not necessarily do so - which is where waste comes in. If bureaucrats are interested in the nonpecuniary benefits of their bureaus, they will have an incentive to maximize their activities and budgetary allocation rather than their operating efficiency. In discussing the evaluation of public programs, the author focuses on the"true"benefits, as perceived by citizens. Would a well-to-do citizen, who could afford private security guards, make the same evaluation about public security that a poor citizen would make? In general, what considerations affect a person's desire for a given amount of public spending, and what are the important parameters that analysts should take into account in their investigation? The author also explores the issues behind the private sector's response to government activities and argues against a mechanistic approach to the interaction between the private and public sector. Unless decisionmakers are relatively certain about how citizens evaluate government actions, citizens may respond in a way that nullifies the government action. The author concludes that more empirical work is needed on measuring citizens's response to public sector activities. And fiscal policy, especially on expenditures, should be modeled on a disaggregated basis to isolate hypotheses about potential private sector responses to individual public programs.National Governance,Economic Stabilization,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

Studies of dynamical localization in a finite-dimensional model of the quantum kicked rotator

We review our recent works on the dynamical localization in the quantum kicked rotator (QKR) and the related properties of the classical kicked rotator (the standard map, SM). We introduce the Izrailev $N$-dimensional model of the QKR and analyze the localization properties of the Floquet eigenstates [{\em Phys. Rev. E} {\bf 87}, 062905 (2013)], and the statistical properties of the quasienergy spectra. We survey normal and anomalous diffusion in the SM, and the related accelerator modes [{\em Phys. Rev. E} {\bf 89}, 022905 (2014)]. We analyze the statistical properties [{\em Phys. Rev. E} {\bf 91},042904 (2015)] of the localization measure, and show that the reciprocal localization length has an almost Gaussian distribution which has a finite variance even in the limit of the infinitely dimensional model of the QKR, $N\rightarrow \infty$. This sheds new light on the relation between the QKR and the Anderson localization phenomenon in the one-dimensional tight-binding model. It explains the so far mysterious strong fluctuations in the scaling properties of the QKR. The reason is that the finite bandwidth approximation of the underlying Hamilton dynamical system in the Shepelyansky picture [{\em Phys. Rev. Lett.} {\bf 56}, 677 (1986)] does not apply rigorously. These results call for a more refined theory of the localization length in the QKR and in similar Floquet systems, where we must predict not only the mean value of the inverse of the localization length but also its (Gaussian) distribution. We also numerically analyze the related behavior of finite time Lyapunov exponents in the SM and of the $2\times2$ transfer matrix formalism.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, (contribution to the proceedings of the Symposium:"Quantum and Classical Chaos: What comes next?", Ljubljana, Slovenia 2014