Access to Population-Level Signaling as a Source of Inequality

We identify and explore differential access to population-level signaling (also known as information design) as a source of unequal access to opportunity. A population-level signaler has potentially noisy observations of a binary type for each member of a population and, based on this, produces a signal about each member. A decision-maker infers types from signals and accepts those individuals whose type is high in expectation. We assume the signaler of the disadvantaged population reveals her observations to the decision-maker, whereas the signaler of the advantaged population forms signals strategically. We study the expected utility of the populations as measured by the fraction of accepted members, as well as the false positive rates (FPR) and false negative rates (FNR). We first show the intuitive results that for a fixed environment, the advantaged population has higher expected utility, higher FPR, and lower FNR, than the disadvantaged one (despite having identical population quality), and that more accurate observations improve the expected utility of the advantaged population while harming that of the disadvantaged one. We next explore the introduction of a publicly-observable signal, such as a test score, as a potential intervention. Our main finding is that this natural intervention, intended to reduce the inequality between the populations' utilities, may actually exacerbate it in settings where observations and test scores are noisy

Strategic signaling for utility control in audit games

As an effective method to protect the daily access to sensitive data against malicious attacks, the audit mechanism has been widely deployed in various practical fields. In order to examine security vulnerabilities and prevent the leakage of sensitive data in a timely manner, the database logging system usually employs an online signaling scheme to issue an alert when suspicious access is detected. Defenders can audit alerts to reduce potential damage. This interaction process between a defender and an attacker can be modeled as an audit game. In previous studies, it was found that sending real-time signals in the audit game to warn visitors can improve the benefits of the defender. However, the previous approaches usually assume perfect information of the attacker, or simply concentrate on the utility of the defender. In this paper, we introduce a brand-new zero-determinant (ZD) strategy to study the sequential audit game with online signaling, which empowers the defender to unilaterally control the utility of visitors when accessing sensitive data. In addition, an optimization scheme based on the ZD strategy is designed to effectively maximize the utility difference between the defender and the attacker. Extensive simulation results show that our proposed scheme enhances the security management and control capabilities of the defender to better handle different access requests and safeguard the system security in a cost-efficient manner

Migrant wages, remittances and recipient labour supply in a moral hazard model

This paper analyzes the interaction between migrants income and remittances and between remittancesand the labor supply of residents. The model is cast as a two-period game with imperfect informationabout the residents' real economic situation. Residents subject to a good economic situation may behave as if they were in a poor economic situation only in order to manipulate remitters' expectations. The latter, being aware of this risk, reduce the remitted amount accordingly. Therefore, in the equilibrium, residents who really are victims of the bad economic outlook, are penalized as compared to the perfect information set-up. In some circumstances, they can signal their type by drastically cutting working hours, thus further enhancing their precarity right when their economic situation is the worst.Migrants, Remittances, Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium, Labour Supply, Signaling, Altruism

A note on a value with incomplete communication

The Myerson's models on partial cooperation in cooperative games have been studied extensively by Borm, Owen, Tijs and Myerson. Hamiache proposes a new solution concept for the case in which the communication relations among players are modelled by means of an undirected graph. In this work, we analize this value making some vagueness clear, generalize this value to other models of partial cooperation emphasizing the differences in the generalization and we include some comparative calculations of this value with the Myerson value and the position value.Cooperative game, Myerson value, position value, consistency.

Assessing the potential for U.S. utility green bonds

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Bonds are the largest single class of financial instrument across the world’s financial markets. Recently, a subclass of these bonds, called green bonds, has emerged in the market place. Green bonds are a type of bond whose proceeds may be used only for certain approved “green” investments. In exchange for agreeing to invest only in such projects, the bond issuer obtains some value greater than they would obtain from traditional financing, and are therefore encouraged to finance and undertake a greater number of green projects. This unique value may not be recognized in traditional financial accounting. Of course, like any other capital-raising investment, green bonds enable their issuer to finance a new project that should increase (or at least maintain) its revenues, profits, and cash flow. The utility sector was the second largest issuer of green bonds in 2017, accounting for $26.2 billion dollars’ worth of green bond issuance globally. These were primarily issued to finance renewable energy projects, a class of projects that makes the utility sector one of the most logical for deployment of green bonds. While choosing to issue green bonds does not seem to have any price advantage over regular bonds in the market, green bonds can provide other benefits. These benefits may include reputation effects, better treatment in secondary markets, and other intangibles (See Table ES1)

Monopoly, asymmetric information, and optimal environmental taxation

This paper aims to examine optimal environmental taxation in an incomplete-information two-period model in which a monopolistic firm produces and pollutes. It is assumed that the polluting firm is privately informed about its costs of production, and the policymaker, which can only infer the firm's costs from observing the output produced in the first period, has the chance to set environmental taxes to affect emissions; the emitter of pollution may then choose a non-optimal level of production in such a period in order to manipulate the policymaker's beliefs concerning its costs. If the policymaker values environmental quality sufficiently, the low-cost polluter has an incentive to misrepresent itself as a high-cost firm in order to secure a low environmental tax in the second period. This leads the high-cost polluting firm to produce, in the first period, an output level that is not higher than output which would be optimal if only short-term considerations were taken into account. The optimal environmental tax rate in the first period, when the firm's output is a signal of its cost, is then lower than or equal to what it would be if the firm's output was not a signal of firm's costs. The expected emissions in the former context are also lower than or equal to those in the latter case. By contrast, when the policymaker's valuation of the environment is sufficiently low, the environmental tax is negative (a subsidy per unit of pollutant emitted) in both the signaling and non-signaling contexts and no less in the former context than in the latter.Environmental tax and subsidy policy, monopolistic polluting firm, vertical asymmetric information, signaling and non-signaling

International Remittances and Residents' Labour Supply in a Signaling Model

This paper analyzes the impact of remittances sent by altruistic migrants on the labor supply of residents. The model is cast as a two-period game with asymmetric information about the residents' real economic situation. The optimal transfer depends on wages of both the donor and the recipient. Residents subject to a good economic situation may behave as if they were in a poor economic situation only in order to manipulate remitters' expectations. The latter, being aware of this risk, reduce the transferred amount accordingly. Therefore, in the equilibrium, residents who really are victims of the bad economic outlook, are penalized as compared to the perfect information set-up. In some circumstances, they can signal their type by drastically cutting working hours, thus further enhancing their precarityAltruism; Development; International Economics; Labor Economics; Labor Supply; Migrants; Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium; Signaling

Coverage games in small cells networks

This paper considers the problem of cooperative power control in distributed small cell wireless networks. We introduce a novel framework, based on repeated games, which models the interactions of the different transmit base stations in the downlink. By exploiting the specific structure of the game, we show that we can improve the system performance by selecting the Pareto optimal solution as well as reduce the price of stability

Towards an artificial therapy assistant: Measuring excessive stress from speech

The measurement of (excessive) stress is still a challenging endeavor. Most tools rely on either introspection or expert opinion and are, therefore, often less reliable or a burden on the patient. An objective method could relieve these problems and, consequently, assist diagnostics. Speech was considered an excellent candidate for an objective, unobtrusive measure of emotion. True stress was successfully induced, using two storytelling\ud sessions performed by 25 patients suffering from a stress disorder. When reading either a happy or a sad story, different stress levels were reported using the Subjective Unit of Distress (SUD). A linear regression model consisting of the high-frequency energy, pitch, and zero crossings of the speech signal was able to explain 70% of the variance in the subjectively reported stress. The results demonstrate the feasibility of an objective measurement of stress in speech. As such, the foundation for an Artificial Therapeutic Agent is laid, capable of assisting therapists through an objective measurement of experienced stress

The Battle for Dominance: Innovating Firms\u27 Strategic Market Success in the Context of a Standards War

To increase the likelihood of success of their market-focused innovations, firms that develop innovations for targeted markets regularly communicate with market participants in order to reduce the uncertainties participants hold regarding the firms’ innovations. Among other tactics, these firms employ strategic market signals. The paper develops three types of uncertainty (technical, market and standards) associated with the market-focused innovations as well as hypotheses related to the impacts of firms’ signals, which are used to address the uncertainty issues, on firms’ market success during the standards war. The research findings have implications for both theory and practice