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on Computational Economics |
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Issue of 2008‒05‒10
four papers chosen by |
| By: | Ian McCarthy (Indiana University Bloomington) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies advertising, price ceilings and taxes in a sequential search model with bilateral heterogeneities in production and search costs. We estimate equilibria using a genetic algorithm (GA) applied to over 100 market scenarios, each differing based on the number of firms, number of consumers, existence of price ceilings or taxes, costs of production, costs of advertising, consumers' susceptibility to advertising and consumers' search costs. We compare our equilibrium results to those of the standard theoretical consumer search literature and analyze the welfare effects of advertising, price ceilings and sales taxes. We find that price ceilings and uninformative advertising can improve welfare, especially if search costs are sufficiently high. |
| Keywords: | Sequential Search Models, Genetic Algorithms, Price Ceilings, Taxes, Advertising, Welfare |
| JEL: | C63 D21 D43 D73 D83 M37 |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inu:caeprp:2008-010&r=cmp |
| By: | Colombino Ugo (University of Turin); Locatelli Marilena (University of Turin); Narazani Edlira (University of Turin); O'Donoghue Cathal; Shima Isilda (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we develop and estimate a microeconometric model of household labour supply for four European countries representative of different economies and welfare policy regimes: Denmark, Italy, Portugal and United Kingdom. We then simulate, under the constraint of constant net tax revenue, the effects of 10 hypothetical tax-transfer reforms which include various alternative versions of a Basic Income policy. We produce various indexes and criteria according to which the reforms can be ranked. It turns out that in every country there are many reforms that can improve upon the current status according to many criteria and that might be “politically” feasible. Overall, the non meanstested policies have a better performance and progressive tax rules are somehow more efficient than the flat tax rules. |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:200806&r=cmp |
| By: | Natalie Svarcova (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic); Petr Svarc (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | Using a simple computational model, we study consequences of herding behavior in population of agents connected in networks with different topologies: random networks, small-world networks and scale-free networks. Agents sequentially choose between two technologies using very simple rules based on the previous choice of their immediate neighbors. We show that different seeding of technologies can lead to very different results in the choice of majority of agents. We mainly focus on the situation where one technology is seeded randomly while the other is directed to targeted (highly connected) agents. We show that even if the initial seeding is positively biased toward the first technology (more agents start with the choice of the first technology) the dynamic of the model can result in the majority choosing the second technology under the targeted hub approach. Even if the change to majority choice is highly improbable targeted seeding can lead to more favorable results. The explanation is that targeting hubs enhances the diffusion of the firm’s own technology and halts or slows-down the adoption of the concurrent one. Comparison of the results for different network topologies also leads to the conclusion that the overall results are affected by the distribution of number of connections (degree) of individual agents, mainly by its variance. |
| Keywords: | technology adoption, simulation, networks, herding behavior |
| JEL: | D71 D74 |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2008_07&r=cmp |
| By: | Cara Marshall (Fordham University, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | No abstract information. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frd:wpaper:dp2008-08&r=cmp |