We develop a diagrammatic framework that can be used to study the economic linkages between regions or cities. Hitherto, such linkages have not been the primary focus of either the theoretical or empirical literatures. We use the framework to analyse the impact of shocks that occur in one region...

We consider the literatures on urban systems and New Economic Geography to examine questions concerning agglomeration and how areas respond to shocks to the economic environment. We first propose a diagrammatic framework to compare the two approaches. We then use this framework to study a number...

We analyze demand for prepaid cellular voice and short message service (SMS) in South Africa by means of a demand-and-supply structural model based on a multinomial specification fitted to a cross-sectional data set on Vodacom customers collected in 2005. We find that consumers are very...

This paper proposes a rule to determine the winner of a soccer match which is different from the traditional penalty shoot-outs at the end of extra time. We show that games can be more attractive if penalties are shot before extra time and the outcome counts only if the tie is preserved during...

We model the brain as a multi-agent organization. Based on recent neuroscience evidence, we assume that different systems of the brain have different time-horizons and different access to information. Introducing asymmetric information as a restriction on optimal choices generates endogenous...

Building on evidence from neurobiology and neuroscience, we model the physiological limitations faced by individuals in the process of decision-making that starts with sensory perception and ends in action selection. The brain sets a neuronal threshold, observes whether the neuronal cell firing...

In this Paper we show that the main empirical findings about firm diversification and performance are actually consistent with the optimal behavior of a firm that maximizes shareholder value. In our model, diversification allows a firm to explore better productive opportunities while taking...

Market definitions are an abstraction: they are useful only to the extent that they help us to organize the way we think about certain types of economic activity. This paper critically examines three different methods of identifying market boundaries, stressing the link between substantive...