The dissertation contains four stand-alone studies, chapters 2 through 5. In chapter 1, I highlight commonalities among the studies. In chapter 2, I consider the principle of structural balance - "The friend of a friend is a friend, the enemy of a friend is an enemy, the friend of an enemy is an...

My philosophical case study concerns textbook presentations of the theory of demand. Does this theory contain anything more than just a collection of tautologies? In order to determine its empirical content, it must be viewed holistically. But then, the theory implies false factual claims. We...

Al igual que la mayoría de los datos macroeconómicos, las cifras de déficit público están sujetas a revisiones. Sin embargo, en el caso de Europa, estas podrían ser especialmente preocupantes dado el papel que desempeñan los datos fiscales en el funcionamiento de las reglas de...

An agent is generally defined as an entity capable of perceiving its environment and accomplishing a particular action without explicit instruction. Blindly taking directives without thinking is typically not intelligent, so rather a software agent is deemed intelligent if it may be...

This dissertation focuses on robust coalition formation between selfish agents in a dynamic environment where contracts are unenforceable. Previous research on this topic has covered each different aspect of this problem, but no research successfully addresses these factors in combination....

This dissertation studies important issues in supply chain management and marketing interface research: competition, product line design, and channel efficiency, at the presence of vertically differentiated products. Vertical differentiation as a means of price discrimination has been...

This dissertation explores several aspects of the theory in industrial organization.The first chapter builds a model with two cost asymmetric firms who not only have Cournot competition in the spot market but also have the opportunity to trade forward contracts. It is shown that with forward...

The economics of information is a broad field covering all aspects of information including decision making. We briefly describe 4 methods used to model the decision-making process. This is not an exhaustive list of the methods used to value information, nor are differences between the methods...