Topics in Dynamics, Competition, Contracts, and Voting

动态、竞争、合约和投票主题

• 批准号: 9617993
• 负责人: Eric Maskin
• 金额: $ 19.63万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-07-01 至 2000-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9617993&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Topics; Dynamics; Competition; Contracts; Voting

The project has several distinct parts. Each component addresses a fundamental problem in an important area of economics. In the first part, we propose a game-theoretic solution concept called a Markov equilibrium. Economists use dynamic games to make predictions about how economic actors interact strategically over time. Markov equilibrium is a tool for making sharper predictions in these dynamic games. We extend the notion of a Markov equilibrium to include situations in which actions of agents cannot be observed, and situations in which agents learn by experimentation. We use these tools to examine dynamic inequality and segregation. In the second part we propose to examine the efficiency of auctions. Auctions are a commonly-used mechanist for allocating goods across buyers. We plan to investigate which auctions do the best job of ensuring that the complex goods end up in the hands of the buyers who value them the most. Third, we plan to study the extent to which the difficulty of foreseeing or specifying future contingencies may interfere with contract negotiations between two economic parties. In our model, we address the difficult problem of agents who cannot make contracts contingent on every state of nature, but can make contracts contingent on future payoffs. Finally, we propose to investigate which voting rules (e.g., majority rule or plurality rule) are robust in the sense that they work `well` (satisfy certain standard desiderata) in as wide set of circumstances as possible.

该项目有几个不同的部分。 每个组成部分都解决了经济学重要领域的一个基本问题。 在第一部分中，我们提出了一个称为马尔可夫均衡的博弈论解决方案概念。 经济学家使用动态博弈来预测经济参与者如何随着时间的推移进行战略性互动。 马尔可夫均衡是在这些动态博弈中做出更准确预测的工具。 我们将马尔可夫均衡的概念扩展到包括无法观察智能体行为的情况以及智能体通过实验学习的情况。 我们使用这些工具来研究动态不平等和隔离。 在第二部分中，我们建议检查拍卖的效率。 拍卖是一种在买家之间分配商品的常用机制。 我们计划调查哪些拍卖最能确保复杂的商品最终到达最看重它们的买家手中。 第三，我们计划研究难以预见或指定未来突发事件可能在多大程度上干扰两个经济当事人之间的合同谈判。 在我们的模型中，我们解决了代理人的难题，他们不能根据每种自然状态制定合同，但可以根据未来的收益制定合同。 最后，我们建议调查哪些投票规则（例如，多数规则或多数规则）是稳健的，因为它们在尽可能广泛的情况下“运行良好”（满足某些标准需求）。