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A social dilemma is, in essence, a prisoners' dilemma in a continuous strategy space. I discuss a number of social dilemmas that have caught my attention, offer an elementary, diagrammatic synthesis of them, and discuss some of the economic insights that the diagrams capture, including incentives for pre-commitment. Finally, I model pre-commitment via delegation and link results to the literature on the evolution of preferences.

We examine how preferences evolve by natural selection in a competitive environment similar to that characterizing much of our evolutionary past. We find that the evolutionarily stable preferences in this context exhibit a concern not only for absolute payoffs but also for relative payoffs, and that this intensifies the degree of competition relative to what obtains when players consider only absolute payoffs. We argue that this has consequences for the equilibrium population size. We argue that the premise of this analysis is consistent with the available anthropological evidence, and that the prediction is broadly consistent with the findings of experimental game theory. JEL Classification: C70

We provide a model of know-how sharing between competing firms in which each of two firms gets a stochastic innovation in its stock of know-how in every period. Separately considering the cases when innovations are indivisible and divisible, we examine the nature of the subgame perfect sharing agreements that can obtain. We discover that both stochasticity and indivisibility undermine the ability to support sharing. Furthermore, we find that there are equilibria in which know-how sharing can be intermittent and that small innovations are more likely to be shared than large ones, when innovations are divisible but not necessarily when they are indivisible. JEL Classification: O30, O33

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This note focuses on some implications of person-specific costs of production, costs of production which arc proportional to the number of persons employed. Costs of providing office space, lockers, written instructions, specialized clothing, and on-the job training are examples of person-specific costs of production, Such costs imply that aggregate production costs are. dependent upon both hours utilized anti on the number of employees. In order to economize on such costs the employer will induce employees, through premium wage rates, salaries, or other contractual arrangements, to work longer hours than they normally would. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argues that the accepted analysis of firm-specific human capital as a shared investment is erroneous. Role of employers in wage profile decision-making; Model for profit-maximization of investment; Implications of firm-specific capital for wage profile; Assumptions of stochastic human capital demand and layoffs.

Provides information on an article on the optimum location in spatial competition between three firms. Problem in duopoly; Construction of three perceived demand functions; Comment on the article.