We propose a formal re-definition of the concept market failure based on the idea of the imperfect state. In the Neo-classical taxonomy, a decentralized regime of exchange is a market failure if its laissez faire equilibrium solution is welfare-dominated by a technically feasible alternative. If...

The economic catch-up of the East Asian region went hand-in-hand with the emergence and even dominance of large quasi-state or private conglomerates. Such for example were the Zaibatsus in the pre-WWII and the Keiretsus of the post-WWII Japan and the Chaebols of South Korea which enjoyed...

Differential delivery dates (D3) of contract obligations characterize most contracts in real life. D3 puts the contractor who delivers last, in the words of David Hume (1769), in "a position of advantage" because reneging on his/her obligation can be profitable. Ex-ante remedies such as Coase's...

As a proxy for a Pareto-efficient market economy, we adopt the two-party Nash Bargaining model featuring a qualitative bias in the treatment of the contributions of the parties. The Piketty inequality here is the share in total welfare accruing to the richer party over total welfare attained at...

We propose an equilibrium concept, the Robust Nash equilibrium (RNE), that combines the best-reply rationality and the first mover invariance condition. The single-stage 2x2 symmetric information game G is transformed into sequential two-stage games with two sub-trees: STA has the row player...

Documentary evidence of the emergence and the eventual complete dominance of the Chinese mercantile traders (Sangleys) during the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines is first presented. We identify the critical traits in the Sangley mercantile genome and the new contractual and...

We give the conditions for the attainment of self-enforcing Pareto efficiency under complete effort non-observability, strict agent rationality and global budget balance among teams involved in a winner-takes-all contest for a prize. Employing Nash conjectures and fixed fee financing of the...

We fuse a social dilemma game and a game pitting the group against nature, where the group's probability of avoiding disaster depends on the resources it raises from members. The result is the Nederlander-Prisoner's Dilemma Game where the cost of failure is equally shared. We introduce the...

Many supply contracts between the state and private agents in a developing country are cost-re-imbursement variety and are rolled out under weak and unreliable governance. The latter has to be provided for through higher supply cost. The state in turn can lower the contract cost by providing...

We reformulate the Humean farmer game on the basis of random assignment of advantage and the cost e of helping in another's harvest. The result is a game that is a coordination game if e < ½ or a dominant strategy Prisoner's Dilemma Game if e > ½ which allows a joint treatment of the two interpretations of the Humean farmer game. We employ two...</½>