Social Status and Optimal Income Taxation

This paper examines the optimal (first-best) fiscal policy in a stochastic, infinite-horizon representative agent model that exhibits consumption-enhanced as well as wealth-enhanced social status in the household utility. We show that the optimal labor tax rate is a positive constant that is used to correct negative consumption externalities. The optimal capital tax rate is also positive in order to overturn agents' status-seeking capital over-accumulation. Moreover, we find that in contrast to a conventional automatic stabilizer, the optimal capital tax moves in the opposite direction with shocks to firms' production technology. This result turns out to be qualitatively consistent with the discernible empirical evidence that many countries have implemented procyclical fiscal policies.Social Status, Optimal Income Taxation

Volailles bio: Des pistes pour une alimentation 100% AB. Connaître ses matières premières: une des clés du succès

En production avicole biologique (ainsi que dans les autres filières animales), l’alimentation représente la part la plus importante du coût de production. Les aliments sont composés de céréales, de tourteaux et autres graines plus ou moins riches en protéines, d’huile ainsi que de minéraux et vitamines. Les céréales, bien que présentant une teneur en protéines assez faible, peuvent représenter jusqu’à 40 % de la MAT (Matière Azotée Totale) de l’aliment. Cependant, pour permettre de bonnes performances, elles doivent être complémentées par des matières premières plus concentrées en protéines et en acides aminés essentiels

A cognitive hierarchy theory of one-shot games: Some preliminary results

Strategic thinking, best-response, and mutual consistency (equilibrium) are three key modelling principles in noncooperative game theory. This paper relaxes mutual consistency to predict how players are likely to behave in in one-shot games before they can learn to equilibrate. We introduce a one-parameter cognitive hierarchy (CH) model to predict behavior in one-shot games, and initial conditions in repeated games. The CH approach assumes that players use k steps of reasoning with frequency f (k). Zero-step players randomize. Players using k (≥ 1) steps best respond given partially rational expectations about what players doing 0 through k - 1 steps actually choose. A simple axiom which expresses the intuition that steps of thinking are increasingly constrained by working memory, implies that f (k) has a Poisson distribution (characterized by a mean number of thinking steps τ ). The CH model converges to dominance-solvable equilibria when τ is large, predicts monotonic entry in binary entry games for τ < 1:25, and predicts effects of group size which are not predicted by Nash equilibrium. Best-fitting values of τ have an interquartile range of (.98,2.40) and a median of 1.65 across 80 experimental samples of matrix games, entry games, mixed-equilibrium games, and dominance-solvable p-beauty contests. The CH model also has economic value because subjects would have raised their earnings substantially if they had best-responded to model forecasts instead of making the choices they did

A cognitive hierarchy model of games

Players in a game are “in equilibrium” if they are rational, and accurately predict other players' strategies. In many experiments, however, players are not in equilibrium. An alternative is “cognitive hierarchy” (CH) theory, where each player assumes that his strategy is the most sophisticated. The CH model has inductively defined strategic categories: step 0 players randomize; and step k thinkers best-respond, assuming that other players are distributed over step 0 through step k − 1. This model fits empirical data, and explains why equilibrium theory predicts behavior well in some games and poorly in others. An average of 1.5 steps fits data from many games

On the Public Economics of Casino Gambling

This paper studies casino-style gambling from the public economics point of view in a jurisdiction populated by oligopolistically competitive legal casinos. We consider three different regimes: laissez-faire, entry regulation and tax regulation. The model highlights three important external effects from casino-style gambling: non-casino income creation, social disorder costs, and casino exporting to other jurisdictions. In the generalized case with an endogenously-determined ratio of local to total gamblers, we allow the configuration of casinos to be centralized or jurisdiction-wide dispersed. A complete comparison between equilibrium and command optimum outcomes is provided, and the welfare consequences under the three regimes and two casino configurations are examined.Casino gambling, externalities, oligopoly pricing, entry, tax regulation

The Strategies of Natural Polysaccharide in Wound Healing

Severe or chronic wounds related to diseases or serious incidents have received big attention from not only a scientific standpoint but also a business perspective. Therefore, an effective treatment to abridge the long-term hospitalization of severe wound becomes indispensable. Glycosaminoglycan (GAG), one of the extracellular matrix molecules produced by fibroblasts, participates in cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, in cell proliferation and migration, and in cytokine and growth factor signaling associated with all phases of wound recovery. Natural polysaccharide, for example, calcium alginate, which consists of mainly differing ratios of d-mannuronic and l-guluronic acid and rich of calcium ions, has been demonstrated to functionalize the glycosaminoglycan activity during wound healing. Once the trigger of the underlying wound healing mechanisms was understood, it should be possible to find ways to enhance and resolve the wound healing process in the patient with conditions and may lead to the potential for treatment alternatives in the future clinical field