I distinguish two types of macroeconomic models. The first type are top-down models in which some or all agents are capable of understanding the whole picture and use this superior information to determine their optimal plans. The second type are bottom-up models in which all agents experience...

The weak rationality principle is not an empirical statement but a heuristic rule of how to proceed in social sciences. It is a necessary ingredient of any ‘understanding’ social science in the Weberian sense. In this paper, first this principle and its role in economic theorizing is...

In this paper we develop a micro ecosystem model whose basic entities are representative organisms which behave as if maximizing their net offspring under constraints. Net offspring is increasing in prey biomass intake, declining in the loss of own biomass to predators and Allee's Law applies....

Predator-prey relationships account for an important part of all interactions between species. In this paper we provide a microfoundation for such predator-prey relations in a food chain. Basic entities of our analysis are representative organisms of species modelled similar to economic...

Economists have analyzed potential for damages from climate change from theoretical analyses and with Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). Analytical models typically write damages as a function of the carbon stock, while IAMs typically view damages as based on temperatures. In this paper, we...

This paper derives a micro-founded gravity equation in general equilibrium based on a translog demand system that allows for endogenous markups and rich substitution patterns across goods. In contrast to standard CES-based gravity equations, trade is more sensitive to trade costs if the...

This paper proposes an explanation of the shifts in the volatility of exchange rate returns that relies on standard present value exchange rate models. Agents are uncertain about the true data generating model and deal with the model uncertainty by making inference on the models and their...