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We survey recent theoretical and empirical literature on political economics of non-democracies. Nondemocratic regimes face multiple challenges to their rule, both internal, such as palace coups or breakdown of their support coalition, and external, such as mass protests or revolutions. We analyze strategic decisions made by dictators from the standpoint of maximizing the chances of regime survival in the light of these challenges, and show how it explains multiple common patterns, from hiring political loyalists to positions that require competence, to restricting media freedom at the cost of sacrificing bureaucratic efficiency, to running propaganda campaigns, organizing election fraud, purging opponents and associates, and repressing citizens. (JEL D72, D73, D82, D83, L82, O17) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human beings have countless desires but bounded resources, and this limitation makes them choose between alternatives. Consumers are encouraged to be aware of the best alternative use of a resource (e.g., money and time), which is known as the opportunity cost of their choice. The current systematic review addresses existing debates and ambiguities surrounding opportunity cost consideration by consumers. We review the origins, different definitions, antecedents, associated decisions, and outcomes of opportunity costs consideration through a detailed examination of the relevant literature from multiple disciplines such as marketing, psychology, and economics. The SPAR‐4‐SLR protocol is used to conduct the review and the ADO (Antecedents, Decisions, Outcomes) framework is used to organize our findings. We highlight and reconcile two different perspectives on the conceptualization of opportunity cost as the forgone value (by considering willingness to pay) versus the physical market value of the second‐best alternative. Different antecedents of opportunity cost consideration are categorized into three categories: individual differences, situational variables, and information processing method. We discuss when and why consumers tend to neglect the opportunity cost, in which situations they are more likely to overestimate the opportunity cost, and what is the difference between consideration of opportunity cost of time and money. Results show that despite what the economics literature suggests, opportunity cost consideration does not always lead to positive outcomes. Based on the literature of regret theory, and differences between maximizers and satisficers, we discuss how opportunity cost considerations might lead to choice discomfort, regret, and dissatisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic analysis assumes that consumer behaviour can be rationalised by a utility function. Previous research has shown that some consistency of choices with economic rationality can be captured by permanent cognitive ability. No other known study however has examined how a temporary load in subjects' working memory can affect economic rationality. Using two controlled laboratory experiments, we exogenously vary cognitive load by asking subjects to memorise a number while they undertake an induced budget allocation task (Choi et al. 2007a , b). Using a number of manipulation checks, we verify that cognitive load has adverse effects on subjects' performance in reasoning tasks. However, we find no effect in any of the goodness-of-fit measures that measure consistency of subjects' choices with the Generalized Axiom of Revealed Preference (GARP), despite having a sample size large enough to detect even small differences between treatments with 80% power. We also find no effect on first-order stochastic dominance and risk preferences. Our finding suggests that economic rationality can be attained even when subjects are placed under temporary working memory load, despite the fact that the load has adverse effects in reasoning tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To make decisions we are guided by the evidence we collect and the opinions of friends and neighbors. How do we combine our private beliefs with information we obtain from our social network? To understand the strategies humans use to do so, it is useful to compare them to observers that optimally integrate all evidence. Here we derive network models of rational (Bayes optimal) agents who accumulate private measurements and observe the decisions of their neighbors to make an irreversible choice between two options. The resulting information exchange dynamics has interesting properties: When decision thresholds are asymmetric, the absence of a decision can be increasingly informative over time. In a recurrent network of two agents, the absence of a decision can lead to a sequence of belief updates akin to those in the literature on common knowledge. On the other hand, in larger networks a single decision can trigger a cascade of agreements and disagreements that depend on the private information agents have gathered. Our approach provides a bridge between social decision making models in the economics literature, which largely ignore the temporal dynamics of decisions, and the single-observer evidence accumulator models used widely in neuroscience and psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses his views on the value of economic and finance literature as an aid to decision-making. He believes the literature tends to promote policies that are either impractical or informed by inadequate analysis, and that rigorous application of economic techniques to apparently solvable problems is limited. He also discerns too great a willingness on the part of writers to publish work of merely academic interest, without expending the effort to determine whether it is applicable to real-world problems, or how it can be made so. Three examples are detailed to illustrate his contentions.

A primary goal of most R&D organizations is innovation. The principles of innovation are the essential building blocks for the organization's design and management, and differ from the often quoted principles of management in key ways. Applying the principles of innovation can help R&D and corporate managers to better organize and staff their R&D units by identifying the roles to be performed and the skills each role requires for effective performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a substantial literature in economics and finance has concluded that 'women are more risk averse than men', this conclusion merits investigation. After briefly clarifying the difference between making generalizations about groups, on the one hand, and making valid inferences from samples, on the other, this essay suggests improvements to how economists communicate our research results. Supplementing findings of statistical significance with quantitative measures of both substantive difference ( Cohen's d, a measure in common use in non-Economics literatures) and of substantive overlap (the Index of Similarity, newly proposed here) adds important nuance to the discussion of sex differences. These measures are computed from the data on men, women and risk used in 35 scholarly works from economics, finance and decision science. The results are considerably more mixed and overlapping than would commonly be inferred from the broad claims made in the literature, with standardized differences in means mostly amounting to considerably less than one standard deviation, and the degree of overlap between male and female distributions generally exceeding 80%. In addition, studies that look at contextual influences suggest that these contribute importantly to observations of differences both between and within the sexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu 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.)

We study empirically and analytically growth and fluctuation of firm size distribution. An empirical analysis is carried out on a US data set on firm size, with emphasis on one-time distribution as well as growth-rate probability distribution. Both Pareto's law and Gibrat's law are often used to study firm size distribution. Their theoretical relationship is discussed, and it is shown how they are complementable with a bimodal distribution of firm size. We introduce economic mechanisms that suggest a bimodal distribution of firm size in the long run. The mechanisms we study have been known in the economic literature since long. Yet, they have not been studied in the context of a dynamic decision problem of the firm. Allowing for these mechanism thus will give rise to heterogeneity of firms with respect to certain characteristics. We then present different types of tests on US data on firm size which indicate a bimodal distribution of firm size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple majority is one of the most used decision rules in practice. However, under this decision rule, an alternative can defeat another one with very poor support. For this reason, other decision rules have been considered in the literature, such as qualified and special majorities as well as other majorities based on difference of votes. In this paper we generalize the latter mentioned voting systems by considering individual intensities of preference, and we provide some axiomatic characterizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We study the management of ecosystems in which interacting state variables that are affected by management decisions diffuse in space. We study pattern formation first in a setting where economic agents maximize myopic profits and ignore spillovers onto agents at other sites, and second in the context of a social planner who internalizes these spillovers. We compare patterns under these two institutions and study how the differences in the patterns generated by these two institutions impact the design of regulatory schemes to internalize the externalities. At the same time we introduce new methods based on Fourier series type decompositions that enable us to turn an intractable infinite dimensional optimal control problem into a countable number of finite dimensional optimal control problems. As far as we know these methods are new to the economics literature. Our theory is applied to the management and regulation of a semi-arid system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In the literature on market competition, firms are often modeled as individual decision makers and the internal organization of the firm is neglected (unitary player assumption). However, as the literature on strategic delegation suggests, one cannot generally expect that the behavior of teams is equivalent to the behavior of individuals in Cournot competition. Nevertheless, there are models of team-organizations such that team-firms and individual firms are behaviorally equivalent. This provides a theoretical foundation for the unitary player assumption in Cournot competition. We show that this assumption is robust in experiments, which is in contrast to experimental results on price competition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The purpose of the paper is to explore the potential for using fuzzy logic to analyse economic decision-making under Keynesian uncertainty, and in particular in circumstances where variety of opinion is important. Fuzzy logic is shown to apply where expectations may differ because the nature of the subject matter impedes any 'crisp' way of describing the underlying variables. The particular case of the speculative demand for money is considered, since it explicitly reflects variety of opinion as to whether interest rates are 'high' or 'low'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keynesian concepts of probability and uncertainty emphasize the basis of knowledge available to economic decision makers. Conditions of uncertainty, which involve missing evidence or doubtful arguments, are distinguished from probable risk. Beyond this, on the basis of the claim that the future is yet to be created, some authors argue for further distinctions among different kinds of uncertainty. The paper reviews this particular argument, distinguishing it from Keynesian uncertainty theory generally, and provides a critique of its implication that, due to innovation, objective distributions of possible events do not generally exist at the time of economic decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the development of domestic sourcing by foreign-owned subsidiaries (FOS) in the UK. The regional development and international-business literatures are used to develop a conceptual framework on the links between autonomy, the use of networks, and domestic sourcing. Data from a survey of German, French, and US FOS in the UK is used to test the model. The results indicate that increased use of networks and increased operational decision-making autonomy are associated with increased domestic sourcing, but that only a minority of FOS are increasing their use of domestic sourcing. The growing importance of global sourcing is considered as a possible explanation for the low proportion of FOS that are increasing their use of domestic sourcing. The implications for regional-development policy of the findings are also assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wide participation, in the urban planning context, is justified as the means of balancing multiple interests outside the traditional decision-making setup. However, this article argues that the participatory paradigm provides at best inadequate justification to the planning process. Particularly if consensus building is the aim of the participatory process, it suffers from a number of impossibility results well documented in the political economics literature. ‘Lazy deliberators’ will arrive at the acceptance of a priori median preference, and participatory processes necessarily exclude some groups, even under equitable capability and power distribution. This article intends to contribute to the debate on the nature of participatory planning by critically analyzing the motivations of participation and limitation of the participatory planning paradigms, and advocates a temperate view on their efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demonstrates the effect of the sequential movement of two identical players on profits earned in a game. Evaluation of first player and second player reactions; First mover advantages in negatively related player strategies; Consideration of different games with players choosing prices or output levels as strategies.

There have been a number of articles written in the last few years describing the attributes of various economics journals, including their quality, acceptance practices, and so on. Presumably one could use these data both to determine which journals to buy and read, and to which journals to submit one's papers. This article is concerned with the latter issue; in particular, the author has derived the optimal strategy for submitting manuscripts to economics journals. A problem that is faced periodically is that of deciding as to which of the many available journals should a paper be sent? For highly specialized papers, the answer is sometimes obvious. In many cases, however, any one of several journals may be appropriate. This is the case dealt with in this article. The first problem in doing this analysis was to decide what the individual might be trying to accomplish by his or her journal choice. In general cases of this sort, one might suppose that individuals made decisions in order to maximize some kind of pecuniary return.

Success in today's competitive and complex world depends upon the ability to bring about effective strategic change. Much of the business literature has been preoccupied with finding more sophisticated techniques to formulate better strategies. But business success depends not only on finding the right strategy, but also ensuring it materializes in the form of a pattern of appropriate strategic actions. We know relatively little about this part of the strategy-making process. This article shows how a better understanding of the use of power can provide the energy to ensure strategic action by driving the organization and its members through the strategy-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent article the author presented evidence from management literature that leading cost accountants and management consultants are currently advocating principles of accounting analysis and decision-making that are essentially "marginalist" in character and implications. The present article reports on a questionnaire survey designed to test empirically the acceptance and influence of these new principles among leading American manufacturing firms. It seeks to ascertain what relationships there are between organizational and accounting practices and the policies of the firms employing them. It seeks above all to test the validity of certain "nonmarginalist" propositions concerning business behavior found in recent economics literature, and the "marginalist" hypotheses derived from the management literature. A reasonable inference would seem to be that the use of marginal accounting techniques and a short-time perspective and innovation sensitivity are each independent influences tending towards marginalist pricing. The kind of costing which is appropriate to something akin to conventional theory's short run is itself sufficient to incline companies towards pricing on essentially marginalist lines. The addition of other conditions that may lead management to take especially short views of their needs and opportunities simply increases this tendency.

Environmental cost benefit analysis, CBA, is often the preferred method for economists to assess policy changes which have environmental consequences. It is argued that CBA can help governments focus their resources to maximize the social returns of investments or projects. CBA is also viewed as a useful framework for organizing disparate information and subsequently improve the decision process. Despite the enthusiasm for the method, there have been few attempts outside developed countries to assess CBA's influence on decisions. In this article we used content analysis of official documents to analyse the role played by CBA in the Colombian environmental licensing process. Our results show that CBA's influence on the final decisions has been limited. The problem, we conclude, does not reside in CBA but in the process. Although there is a procedural requirement to do CBA, there is no requirement that the results must be considered in the decision-making. Since the problem lies in the process, not the instrument, we think that merely using a non-monetary assessment method instead of CBA, such as multicriteria analysis, will not lead to better decisions. This latter point is a discussion missing from the ecological economics literature that deserves more attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the usefulness of transaction costs economics to business decision makers which was tackled in various articles published in vol. 14 no. 2 issue of 'Managerial and Decision Economics' journal. Description and ramifications of the concept of opportunism tackled in O. Williamson's article; Use of reputations and preferences in guaranteeing performance discussed in the article by A. Dick and J. Lott.