Topics in Economic Theory

这项研究包括三个不同的项目。 第一种研究在“诱惑”存在的情况下的决策，即一个人知道他不应该选择但又难以抗拒的选项。 虽然对任何节食或戒烟的人来说都很熟悉，但很难将这些现象与标准经济学假设的理性行为者相协调。 与这种诱惑有关的还有一些重要的经济问题。比如，为什么人们似乎为退休储蓄得太少？据推测，这是因为他们年轻时被诱惑消费太多。 在这种情况下，公共政策的适当作用是什么？ 这个项目将开发新的数学模型，智能体如何在这种情况下做出决策，因此，将对这些问题投下新的光。第二个项目也考虑更现实的决策模型，这一次通过引入的可能性，有一些行动方案提供给决策者，他目前还没有认识到。 很多时候，解决一个难题的办法是想一个新的选项，而不是坚持标准的想法。 例如，在签订长期合同时，代理人必须认识到，他们无法预见未来可能采取的所有行动。 然而，他们需要以足够具体的条款规定应该做些什么，以确保合同规定的适当履行。 与第一个项目一样，这项研究将开发新的数学模型来研究这些问题。第三个项目调查一个非常不同的问题，即选举团。虽然这种情况在美国历史上并不经常发生，但选举团不需要像普选那样产生同一个赢家。 许多评论家认为，这必然使选举团不如普选，并主张废除选举团。 令人惊讶的是，很少有人仔细调查选举团的影响及其成本和收益。这项研究将描述选举团比普选更“有效”以及反之亦然的情况。 事实上，某些地区的差异可以使选举团成为一个非常有价值的制度。 例如，如果选举的主要作用是汇总选民所拥有的信息，那么控制选民之间的相关性就很重要。 也就是说，加州的1000万选民所持有的信息不会构成1000万个“数据点”，因为这些信息在该州内部是相关的。 因此，在各州汇总这些信息之前，必须“重新调整”这些信息。

This research consists of three distinct projects. The first investigates decisionmaking in the presence of "temptations," options that the person knows he should not choose but finds difficult to resist. While familiar to anyone who has dieted or quit smoking, for example, it is difficult toreconcile the phenomena with the rational actor presumed by standard economics. There are important economic issues linked to such temptations. For example, why do people seem to save too little for retirement? Presumably, this is because they are tempted to consume too muchwhen younger. What is the appropriate role for public policy in such circumstances? This project will develop new mathematical models of how agents make decisions in such settings and, as such, will cast new light on these questions.The second project also considers more realistic models of decisionmaking, this time by introducing the possibility that there are some courses of action available to the decision-maker that he does not currently recognize. Many times, the solution to a difficult problem is to think of a new option, not to insist on standard ideas. In writing long term contracts, for example, the agents must recognize that they cannot foresee all possible courses of action that might be followed in the future. Yet they need to specify what should be done in specific enough terms to ensure proper performance under the contract. As with the first project, this research will develop new mathematical models for studying such issues. The third project investigates a very different issue, namely the Electoral College. While it has not happened often in US history, the Electoral College need not yield the same winner as a popular election would. Many commentators have suggested that this must make the Electoral College inferior to popular election and have advocated its abolition. Surprisingly, there has been very little careful investigation of the effects the Electoral College has and its costs and benefits. This research will characterize situations in which the electoral college is more "efficient" than popular election and when the reverse is true. In fact, certain kinds of regional differences can make the Electoral College a very valuable institution. For example, if the main role of the election is to aggregate the information voters have, then it is important to control for correlation among voters. That is, the information held by the 10 million voters in California would not constitute 10 million "data points" since the information is correlated within the state. Hence it would be important to "rescale" this information before aggregating it across states.