The paper treats opinion dynamics under bounded confidence when agents employ, beside an arithmetic mean, means like a geometric mean, a power mean or a random mean in aggregating opinions. The different kinds of collective dynamics resulting for these means are studied and compared by...

This paper models commodity futures in a rational expectations equilibrium specifically (i) incorporating the conflict of interests between Hedgers (Producers-Consumers) and Speculators and (ii) superimposing constraints to immunize the real sector of the economy from shocks of excessive futures...

An economic model of the profit-seeking firm seeking to deploy "Open Source" or "Free" software. Both firms considering "purchase" and development of such software are considered. Open Source software as a public good. Such software is a quasi-public good which will sometimes, but not always,...

Consider a simple world populated with two kinds of individuals, those who work and create wealth (peasants) and those who survive by taking the property of others (bandits). The presence of bandits creates an incentive for peasants to seek protection, to defend their property. But protection is...

Recent theoretical work by Cooley and Quadrini (2001) highlight the role of financial frictions in models of firm dynamics. This paper investigates empirically the implications of the Cooley and Quadrini (2001) model for the determinants of firm size dynamics with special emphasis on financial...

The European Environmental Agency (EEA) assigns periodically air pollution emission rights among the EC member states, who, in turn, share their respective endowment among the polluting firms. There exists a moral hazard problem since the EEA does not observe abatement efforts. We propose a...

In this paper we explore the information processing problem of the firm by modeling the firm as type of network, which is comprised of two kinds of agents, 'searchers' and 'managers.' The searchers explore the external environment and report the information to the managers. We explore the role...

Barr and Saraceno (JEDC, forthcoming) model the firm as a type of artificial neural network (ANN) which plays a repeated Cournot game. Each period, the network/firm must estimate the relationship between environmental conditions and optimal output. Among other results, the paper develops the...