Topics in Economic Theory

这项研究由三个不同的项目组成。第一个研究在存在“诱惑”的情况下做出决策，“诱惑”是一个人知道他不应该选择但很难抗拒的选项。例如，尽管节食或戒烟的人对此很熟悉，但很难将这些现象与标准经济学假定的理性行为者调和起来。有一些重要的经济问题与这种诱惑有关。例如，为什么人们为退休存的钱似乎太少了？据推测，这可能是因为他们在年轻时会被诱惑消费得太多。在这种情况下，公共政策应该扮演什么样的角色？这个项目将开发新的数学模型来说明代理人如何在这种情况下做出决策，因此将为这些问题提供新的线索。第二个项目还考虑了更现实的决策模型，这一次是通过引入决策者目前不认识的一些行动路线的可能性。很多时候，解决难题的办法是想出一个新的选择，而不是坚持标准的想法。例如，在撰写长期合同时，代理人必须认识到，他们不能预见未来可能采取的所有行动方针。然而，他们需要以足够具体的条款具体说明应该做些什么，以确保根据合同适当地履行义务。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。第三个项目调查了一个非常不同的问题，即选举人团。尽管这种情况在美国历史上并不常见，但选举人团不一定会产生与普选相同的获胜者。许多评论人士提出，这必然会使选举人团不如普选，并主张废除选举人团。令人惊讶的是，几乎没有人仔细调查选举人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”的情况，以及当情况相反时。事实上，某些类型的地区差异可以使选举人团成为一个非常有价值的机构。例如，如果选举的主要作用是汇总选民拥有的信息，那么控制选民之间的相关性就很重要。也就是说，加州1000万选民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，在跨州聚合这些信息之前，重新调整这些信息的比例将是很重要的。

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.