This paper considers finite games in strategic form. It is shown that, when payoffs are computable, every game has a Nash equilibrium in which each player uses a strategy which is computable. There can, however, exist no algorithm that is guaranteed to find an equilibrium for every instance of a...

We evaluate the stability of risk-sharing contracts in the presence of moral hazard. Contracts are rules for sharing output among producers and affect the extent of private investments in production. Organizations, which are identified with the contracts they offer, compete for membership....

Location-specific norms of behavior are a widespread phenomenon. In the case of medical practice, numerous studies have found that geographic location exerts a strong influence on the choice of treatments and procedures. This paper shows how the presence of social influence on treatment...

This paper studies the effects of learning by observation on the production and wage decisions of a firm . Workers can improve their productivity by observing others within the firm. The firm chooses a wage profile, which determines the amount of research done within the firm. Some workers may...

The details of any social interaction will always be subject to some variation. Frequently, this stems from change that occurs in the external world, but variation may also be of a more subjective kind, arising due to changes in the players' knowledge of the game. It is often the case that...

This paper relates the diffusion of the coronary stent to the presence of prominent or “star” physicians within a local peer group. The paper uses panel data on coronary care in Florida covering the period immediately following the 1995 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the...

This paper considers the robustness of optimal decisions in a model of monopoly and a model of competitive equilibrium in a securities market. Robustness, defined as payoffs being continuous with respect to perturbations in the underlying model, fails to hold for either model. Decision rules are...