scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Author

Kenneth J. Arrow

Bio: Kenneth J. Arrow is an academic researcher from Stanford University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Social choice theory & General equilibrium theory. The author has an hindex of 113, co-authored 411 publications receiving 111221 citations. Previous affiliations of Kenneth J. Arrow include University of California & Princeton University.


Papers
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
19 Mar 1999-Science
TL;DR: Any NIH action to initiate funding of pluripotent stem cell research would violate both the letter and spirit of the federal law banning federal support for research in which human embryos are harmed or destroyed.
Abstract: Last month, 70 members of the U.S. Congress, including Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and J. C. Watts Jr. Republican Conference Chairman, signed a letter urging the federal government to ban all research on stem cells obtained from human embryos and fetuses. The letter calls upon the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to reverse National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Harold Varmus's decision to allow funding of pluripotent stem cell research. The lawmakers object “in the strongest possible terms” to Varmus's decision, as well as to the memorandum issued in January by DHHS General Counsel Harriet Rabb, which served as the legal basis for Varmus's position. In their letter, the members of Congress state, “Any NIH action to initiate funding of such research would violate both the letter and spirit of the federal law banning federal support for research in which human embryos are harmed or destroyed.” Federal laws and regulations, they claim, have protected human embryos and fetuses “from harmful experimentation at the hands of the Federal government” for more than two decades. “This area of law has provided a bulwark against government's misuse and exploitation of human beings in the name of medical progress. It would he a travesty for this Administration to attempt to unravel this accepted ethical standard.”

9 citations

Book
01 May 1985
TL;DR: The relation between competitive equilibrium and the possibility of technical information is more complex than I anticipated as mentioned in this paper, and there seem no simple conditions which would characterize the existence of equilibrium, though its existence prescribes close relation between scale of output and amount of information purchased.
Abstract: : It is obvious that production requires information; in standard general competitive equilibrium theory, this information is embodied in the production possibility set. This kind of information may be called, technical information; it may be thought of as a recipe. The standard treatment is correct so long as information can be taken as given and not subject to alteration by deliberate choice. But in fact the acquisition of new technical information has proceeded on an increasingly rapid scale in the last century or more, and the volume of resources devoted to it has become very large. This fact has been much studied under the heading of the economics of research and development. In this paper, I want to concentrate on one particular aspect, the relation between research and development and the viability of competitive equilibrium. The relation between competitive equilibrium and the possibility of technical information is more complex than I anticipated. Clearly, competitive equilibrium is not impossible, though its existence prescribes close relation between scale of output and amount of information purchased. On the other hand, there seem no simple conditions which would characterize the existence of equilibrium.

9 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: From 1948 until the present, the UN has engaged in 26 peace-keeping operations and the total cost over that period has been about $8.3 billion (current) as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: From 1948 until the present, the UN has engaged in 26 peace-keeping operations. The total cost over that period has been about $8.3 billion (current). In 1992 there were 12 operations under way, for an annual cost of about $2.6 billion.1 This is less than 1 per cent of US military expenditure and probably less than 0.2 per cent of world military expenditure, so it is a trivial fraction of world income. Nevertheless, raising the finances for this operation is not entirely a trivial matter; uncollected contributions from member states equal more than $735 million.

8 citations

01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the problem of identifying the contribution of any individual or institution in the development of economic analysis, which is a logical problem that applies to the study of all history, that is, the difficulty of the counterfactual.
Abstract: The topic of this paper immediately raises a serious methodological question: In what sense can we isolate the contribution of any individual or institution in the development of economic analysis? This is but one example of a fundamental logical problem that applies to the study of all history, that is, the difficulty of the counterfactual. For when you ask, “What is the influence of A (an event, an individual, an idea) on subsequent history?,” you mean to ask what would have happened had A not been there. There is no immediately apparent way to proceed to answer that question. Every now and then historians debate the meaning of interpretation; in recent years the so-called new economic history has been filled with controversy over just such issues.

8 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: Evaluated changes in physician access to a decision-relevant drug database affect prescribing decisions indicate that doctors using the reference have a significantly greater propensity to prescribe generic drugs, are faster to begin prescribing new generics, and prescribe a more diverse set of products.
Abstract: Do information differences across U.S. physicians contribute to treatment disparities? This paper uses a unique new dataset to evaluate how changes in physician access to a decision-relevant drug database affect prescribing decisions. Our results indicate that doctors using the reference have a significantly greater propensity to prescribe generic drugs, are faster to begin prescribing new generics, and prescribe a more diverse set of products. Notably, physicians using the reference database are not faster to prescribe new branded drugs. Given that a new generic drug resembles its branded equivalent clinically, these results are consistent with database users responding primarily to the increased accessibility of non-clinical information such as drug price and insurance formulary data; the results also suggest improvements to physician information access have important aggregate implications for the costs and efficiency of medical care. We address possible selection effects in physician types by relying on within-doctor variation and an instrument for adoption timing that is based on the marketing strategy of the drug reference firm.

7 citations


Cited by
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on recent progress in the theory of property rights, agency, and finance to develop a theory of ownership structure for the firm, which casts new light on and has implications for a variety of issues in the professional and popular literature.

49,666 citations

Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a critique of expected utility theory as a descriptive model of decision making under risk, and develop an alternative model, called prospect theory, in which value is assigned to gains and losses rather than to final assets and in which probabilities are replaced by decision weights.
Abstract: This paper presents a critique of expected utility theory as a descriptive model of decision making under risk, and develops an alternative model, called prospect theory. Choices among risky prospects exhibit several pervasive effects that are inconsistent with the basic tenets of utility theory. In particular, people underweight outcomes that are merely probable in comparison with outcomes that are obtained with certainty. This tendency, called the certainty effect, contributes to risk aversion in choices involving sure gains and to risk seeking in choices involving sure losses. In addition, people generally discard components that are shared by all prospects under consideration. This tendency, called the isolation effect, leads to inconsistent preferences when the same choice is presented in different forms. An alternative theory of choice is developed, in which value is assigned to gains and losses rather than to final assets and in which probabilities are replaced by decision weights. The value function is normally concave for gains, commonly convex for losses, and is generally steeper for losses than for gains. Decision weights are generally lower than the corresponding probabilities, except in the range of low prob- abilities. Overweighting of low probabilities may contribute to the attractiveness of both insurance and gambling. EXPECTED UTILITY THEORY has dominated the analysis of decision making under risk. It has been generally accepted as a normative model of rational choice (24), and widely applied as a descriptive model of economic behavior, e.g. (15, 4). Thus, it is assumed that all reasonable people would wish to obey the axioms of the theory (47, 36), and that most people actually do, most of the time. The present paper describes several classes of choice problems in which preferences systematically violate the axioms of expected utility theory. In the light of these observations we argue that utility theory, as it is commonly interpreted and applied, is not an adequate descriptive model and we propose an alternative account of choice under risk. 2. CRITIQUE

35,067 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends is critical to its innovative capabilities.
Abstract: In this paper, we argue that the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends is critical to its innovative capabilities. We label this capability a firm's absorptive capacity and suggest that it is largely a function of the firm's level of prior related knowledge. The discussion focuses first on the cognitive basis for an individual's absorptive capacity including, in particular, prior related knowledge and diversity of background. We then characterize the factors that influence absorptive capacity at the organizational level, how an organization's absorptive capacity differs from that of its individual members, and the role of diversity of expertise within an organization. We argue that the development of absorptive capacity, and, in turn, innovative performance are history- or path-dependent and argue how lack of investment in an area of expertise early on may foreclose the future development of a technical capability in that area. We formulate a model of firm investment in research and development (R&D), in which R&D contributes to a firm's absorptive capacity, and test predictions relating a firm's investment in R&D to the knowledge underlying technical change within an industry. Discussion focuses on the implications of absorptive capacity for the analysis of other related innovative activities, including basic research, the adoption and diffusion of innovations, and decisions to participate in cooperative R&D ventures. **

31,623 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The dynamic capabilities framework as mentioned in this paper analyzes the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change, and suggests that private wealth creation in regimes of rapid technology change depends in large measure on honing intemal technological, organizational, and managerial processes inside the firm.
Abstract: The dynamic capabilities framework analyzes the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change. The competitive advantage of firms is seen as resting on distinctive processes (ways of coordinating and combining), shaped by the firm's (specific) asset positions (such as the firm's portfolio of difftcult-to- trade knowledge assets and complementary assets), and the evolution path(s) it has aflopted or inherited. The importance of path dependencies is amplified where conditions of increasing retums exist. Whether and how a firm's competitive advantage is eroded depends on the stability of market demand, and the ease of replicability (expanding intemally) and imitatability (replication by competitors). If correct, the framework suggests that private wealth creation in regimes of rapid technological change depends in large measure on honing intemal technological, organizational, and managerial processes inside the firm. In short, identifying new opportunities and organizing effectively and efficiently to embrace them are generally more fundamental to private wealth creation than is strategizing, if by strategizing one means engaging in business conduct that keeps competitors off balance, raises rival's costs, and excludes new entrants. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

27,902 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A nonlinear (nonconvex) programming model provides a new definition of efficiency for use in evaluating activities of not-for-profit entities participating in public programs and methods for objectively determining weights by reference to the observational data for the multiple outputs and multiple inputs that characterize such programs.

25,433 citations