Consider a Bertrand model in which each firm may be inactive with a known probability, so the number of active firms is uncertain. This activity level can be endogenized in several ways ---whether to incur a fixed cost of activity, for example, or what level of output to choose. Our model has a...

Hart & Moore (1999) construct a model to show that contracts perform poorly in complex environments when the state of the world is unverifiable and renegotiation cannot be ruled out. They implicitly assume one player can extort payment from another by threatening to take an inefficient action...

The problem of estimating the common regression coefficients is addressed in this paper for two regression equations with possibly different error variances. The feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) estimators have been believed to be admissible within the class of unbiased estimators. It...

Banks are recognized as playing an important role of monitoring borrowers, thereby reducing the agency costs associated with informational asymmetry. However, there remains an issue "who could monitor the banks", because it is difficult for outsiders to monitor banks' management. In particular,...

This paper discusses a novel estimation method for the residential gas demand function in Japan where the price per unit decreases as the demand exceeds certain thresholds. Such a price system is known as decreasing block rate pricing. The demand function under decreasing block rate pricing is...

Economic development in Southeast Asia has been associated with environmental degradation. Its cause is mainly attributed to rapid industrialization, coupled with urbanization and export growth, whereas the vicious circle of the poverty and the contamination is a minor case. The environmental...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the chronic poverty problems in Metro Manila, based on the NSO data and the participant observations in a squatters area. Indeed, we can recognize the improvement in the poverty incidence in M. M. during the 1990s, but the level of the alleviation may tend...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how seasonal fluctuations in preference may change the dynamic stability and make multiple equilibria more likely outcome in a standard monetary economy. In the analysis, we investigate a model of money-in-the-utility function where real money balances...

This paper incorporates behavioral economics into implementation theory. We use mechanisms that are strictly detail-free. We assume that each agent dislikes telling a white lie when such lying does not serve her/his material interest. We present a permissive result wherein by using just a single...

We propose a new approach to model costly international trade, which includes the standard approach, the "iceberg" transport cost, as a special case. The key idea is to make the technologies of supplying the good depend on the destination of the good. To demonstrate our approach, we extend the...