Does the exercise of the right of self-determination lead to inefficiency? This paper considers a set of centrally planned municipal mergers during the Meiji period, with data from Gifu prefecture. The observed merger pattern can be explained as a social optimum based on a very simple individual...

Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) is a government-sponsored microfinance program. The scheme is based on four features: group lending with joint liability, progressive lending, back-ended subsidy, and social capital. We propose a new model of SGSY having these features: group lending...

The alternating offers game due to Rubinstein (1982) had been used by Binmore (1980) and by Binmore et.al. (1986) to provide via its unique subgame perfect equilibrium an approximate non-cooperative support for the Nash bargaining solution of associated cooperative two-person bargaining games....

We study investments in R&D and the formation of R&D clusters of firms which are competitors in the market. In a three stage game, firms first decide on long-term R&D investment, then form research clusters according to the unanimity game introduced in Bloch(1995), and finally compete in...

In this paper we introduce two values for cooperative games with communication graph structure. For cooperative games the shapley value distributes the worth of the grand coalition amongst the players by taking into account the worths that can be obtained by any coalition of players, but does...

I investigate the effects of population ageing on immigration policies. Voters' attitude towards immigrants depends on how the net gains from immigration are divided up in the society by the fiscal policy. In the theoretical literature this aspect is treated as exogenous to the political process...

We consider a (pure) public goods provision problem with voluntary participation in a quasi-linear economy. We propose a new hybrid solution concept, the free-riding-proof core (FRP-Core), which endogenously determines a contribution group, public goods provision level, and how to share the...

In a matching problem between students and schools, a mechanism is said to be robustly stable if it is stable, strategy-proof, and immune to a combined manipulation, where a student first misreports her preferences and then blocks the matching that is produced by the mechanism. We find that even...

We develop observable restrictions of well-known theories of bargaining over money. We suppose that we observe a finite data set of bargaining outcomes, including data on allocations and disagreement points, but no information on utility functions. We ask when a given theory could generate the...

We study collective choice via an endogenous agenda setting process. At each stage, a status quo is implemented unless it is replaced by a majority (winning coalition) with a new status quo outcome. The process continues until the prevailing status quo is no longer challenged. We impose a...