Internet Auctions: Description, Bidders' Profiles and Implications

The increasing quantity of items bough and sold over the internet led to the success of internet auctions, to the introduction of new auction rules and the creation of new businesses and merger among existing ones. In this paper, we present a description of existing internet auction rules and typical profile of consumers who use them. We found that bidders are most likely located in the U.S., have some internet experience and skills and that they belong to the 26-50 years old age group. We also discuss the implication of online auctions on resource allocation.Internet Auctions, Online Auctions

The diffusion of new technology: adoption subsidies, spillovers, and transaction costs.

We establish the relation between optimal subsidy rates and spillovers from the sequential adoption of a new technology, we find that they evolve in the same direction over time. We show that spillovers, hence the subsidy rates, need not be monotonic. We show that when subsidy rates are increasing, their growth rate has to be paced by the growth rate of the present cost of the adoption of the new technology. We also show that increasing subsidies rates cannot produce the desired effect of accelerating adoption if the social cost of public funds is relatively high; hence first-best subsidy adoptions are not always viable.Adoption subsidies, Adoption spillovers, Technology adoption, Technology diffusion.

A Cellular Automata Simulation of the 1990s Russian Housing Privatization Decision

The study uses a computational approach to study the phenomenon of housing privatization in Russia in the 1990s. As part of the housing reform flats in multi-family buildings were offered to their residents free of payment. Nevertheless rapid mass housing privatization did not take place. While this outcome admits a number of explanations this analysis emphasizes the fact that the environment in which the decision-making households were operating had a high degree of uncertainty and imposed a high information-processing requirement on the decision-makers. Using the bounded rationality paradigm, the study builds a case for a cellular automata simulation of household decision-making in the context of housing privatization reforms in Russia in the 1990s. Cellular automata is then used to simulate a household’s decision to become the owner of its dwelling.cellular automata, complex systems, housing reform, Russia, simulation

Movement of equilibrium of Cournot duopoly and the visualization of bifurcations of its adjustment dynamics

This paper deals with the analytical and graphical representation of the bifurcations appearing from the adjustment dynamics of a 2- player Cournot duopoly, proposed by Puu (1997). We establish admissibility conditions on the initial state of the adjustment dynamics and visualize the dynamics in the space of orbits.Bifurcation surfaces, Chaos, Cournot, Duopoly, Nonlinear dynamics, Stability.

EFFICACY OF WATER TRADING UNDER ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION

The purpose of this paper is to develop a water allocation and technology adoption model under the prior appropriation doctrine that recognizes informational asymmetry among water users and between water users and water authorities. We consider informational asymmetry about the agent's type, defined by a mix of land quality and knowledge. Adverse selection is found to significantly reduce the adoption of modern irrigation technology and to lead to less retirement of poor quality lands than under full information. Further investigation shows that even with asymmetric information, incentives for water trades can exist and lead to additional technology adoption with gains to all parties. Our results suggest that under asymmetric information, even a thin secondary market can improve the allocation of water resources.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Irrigation Technology Adoption and Gains from Water Trading under Asymmetric Information

We develop a water allocation and irrigation technology adoption model under the prior appropriation doctrine with asymmetric information among heterogeneous farmers and between farmers and water authorities; farmers’ heterogeneity is defined by a mix of land quality and knowledge. We find that adverse selection reduces the adoption of modern irrigation technology. We also show that even with asymmetric information, incentives for water trade exist and lead to additional technology adoption with gains to all parties. This suggests that under asymmetric information, a thin secondary market improves the allocation of water resources and induces additional adoption of modern irrigation technologies.Asymmetric information, Irrigation technology, Technology adoption, Water trading.

Impacts of Reallocation of Resource Constraints on the Northeast Economy of Brazil

The present paper explores the role of water and energy resource constraints and allocation on the Northeast Brazil economy. The analysis centered on the creation of an intergrated model in which an econometric-input-output model was linked with a linear programming optimization model for resource allocation. Over the period 1999-2012, the impact on the six agricultural sectors was to reduce their output and employment by 15% annually. The reduction in employment in the rest of the economy was a little over 1% annually. However, since the agricultural sectors continue to employ a significant percentage of the labor force, the aggregate loss of employment amounted to 6% of the total regional employment on average, translating into 1 million jobs annually. When water allocation and energy resource allocations are considered simultaneously, the re-allocations are more limited, resulting in a loss of 0.78 million jobs annually. These results suggest the need for an active link between policy making and economic development when resource constraints are present. Some balance has to be provided between allocation and reallocation on the one hand perhaps driven by concerns with economic efficiency against anticipated losses of employment for part of the labor force with few other alternatives.

Channels of Synthesis Forty Years On: Integrated Analysis of Spatial Economic Systems

Isard’s vision of integrated modeling that was laid out in the 1960s book Methods of Regional Science provided a road map for the development of more sophisticated analysis of spatial economic systems. Some forty years later, we look back at this vision and trace developments in a sample of three areas – demographic-econometric integrated modeling, spatial interaction modeling, and environmental-economic modeling. Attention will be focused on methodological advances and their motivation by new developments in theory as well as innovations in the applications of these models to address new policy challenges. Underlying the discussion will be an evaluation of the way in which spatial issues have been addressed, ranging from concerns with regionalization to issues of spillovers and spatial correlation.Spatial economic system, Integrated analysis,

PyIO: Input-Output Analysis with Python

This is a User Manual about PyIO, an Input-Output analysis tool using Python. Up to date software is available from the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) homepage. http://www.uiuc.edu/unit/real/