The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray. Part of the problem is due to Smith’s "veil of ignorance": individuals unknowingly pursue society’s interest and, as a result, have no clue as to the macroeconomic effects of their actions: witness the Keynes and Leontief multipliers, the concept of value added, fiat money, Engel’s law and technical progress, to name but a few of the macrofoundations of microeconomics. A good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan’s economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker’s Rule. Very simply, the banks, whose lending determined deposits after Roosevelt, and were a public service became private enterprises whose deposits determine lending. These underlay the great moderation preceding 2006, and the subsequent crash.

The Economic Institutions of Capitalism

This paper proposes and tests a model of IJV learning and performance that segments absorptive capacity into the three components originally proposed by Cohen and Levinthal (1990). First, trust between an IJV's parents and the IJV's relative absorptive capacity with its foreign parent are suggested to influence its ability to understand new knowledge held by foreign parents. Second, an IJV's learning structures and processes are proposed to influence its ability to assimilate new knowledge from those parents. Third, the IJV's strategy and training competence are suggested to shape its ability to apply the assimilated knowledge. Revisiting the Hungarian IJVs studied by Lyles and Salk (1996) 3 years later, we find support for the knowledge understanding and application predictions, and partial support for the knowledge assimilation prediction. Unexpectedly, our results suggest that trust and management support from foreign parents are associated with IJV performance but not learning. Our model and results offer a new perspective on IJV learning and performance as well as initial insights into how those relationships change over time. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Absorptive capacity, learning, and performance in international joint ventures

This paper addresses two key questions: (1) what factors influence firms' ability to build alliance capability and enjoy greater alliance success, where firm-level alliance success is measured in two ways: (a) abnormal stock market gains following alliance announcements and (b) managerial assessments of long term alliance performance; and (2) are the two alternate ways of assessing alliance success correlated? We find that firms with greater alliance experience and, more importantly, those that create a dedicated alliance function (with the intent of strategically coordinating alliance activity and capturing/disseminating alliance-related knowledge) realize greater success with alliances. More specifically, firms with a dedicated alliance function achieve greater abnormal stock market gains (average of 1.35%) and report that 63 percent of alliances are successful whereas firms without an alliance function achieve much lower stock market gains (average of 0.18%) and only a 50 percent long-term success rate. We also find a positive correlation between stock market-based measures of alliance success and alliance success measured through managerial assessments. In addition to providing insights into the development of alliance capability among firms, this paper is one of the first to provide empirical support for the efficient markets argument by demonstrating that the initial stock market response to a key event positively correlates to the long-term performance and value of the event. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/34615/248_ftp.pdf?sequence=1

Alliance capability, stock market response, and long‐term alliance success: the role of the alliance function

Econometric policy evaluation: A critique

Players in a game are “in equilibrium” if they are rational, and accurately predict other players' strategies. In many experiments, however, players are not in equilibrium. An alternative is “cognitive hierarchy” (CH) theory, where each player assumes that his strategy is the most sophisticated. The CH model has inductively defined strategic categories: step 0 players randomize; and step k thinkers best-respond, assuming that other players are distributed over step 0 through step k − 1. This model fits empirical data, and explains why equilibrium theory predicts behavior well in some games and poorly in others. An average of 1.5 steps fits data from many games.

/pdf/a-cognitive-hierarchy-model-of-games-59s1sbbd6p.pdf

A Cognitive Hierarchy Model of Games

Social needs play an important role in the purchase of conspicuous goods. In this article, the authors extend traditional economic models to accommodate social needs, such as desire for uniqueness and conformism, and examine their implications for pricing conspicuous goods. First, in the context of a duopoly, the authors identify the conditions under which the desire for uniqueness can increase demand among some consumers as the price of a product increases. Second, the authors show that though the desire for uniqueness leads to higher prices and firm profits, a desire for conformity leads to lower prices and profits. Third, the authors find that consumers purchase high-quality products not because of their desire for uniqueness but despite it. Finally, marketers of conspicuous goods may find it beneficial not to emphasize the functional differences among their products when the need for uniqueness is high. In a laboratory test, the authors find support for the claim that demand for a product amo...

Pricing of Conspicuous Goods: A Competitive Analysis of Social Effects

Consumers purchase conspicuous goods to satisfy not only material needs but also social needs such as prestige. In an attempt to meet these social needs, producers of conspicuous goods like cars, perfumes, and watches, highlight the exclusivity of their products. In this paper, we propose a monopoly model of conspicuous consumption using the rational expectations framework, and then examine how purchase decisions are affected by the desire for exclusivity and conformity. We show that snobs can have an upward-sloping demand curve but only in the presence of consumers who are (weakly) followers. Laboratory tests lend support for this model prediction and for the rational expectations framework. The experimental results suggest that subjects used some degree of sophisticated thinking to arrive at their first-period decisions. Their behavior in the subsequent trials, however, can be adequately captured by a purely adaptive learning mechanism. We discuss the implications of consumer learning for optimal dynamic pricing policy by a monopolist.

Conspicuous Consumption and Sophisticated Thinking

In collaborating to compete, firms forge different types of strategic alliances: same-function alliances, parallel development of new products, and cross-functional alliances. A major challenge in the management of these alliances is how to control the resource commitment of partners to the collaboration. In this research we examine both theoretically and experimentally how the type of an alliance and the prescribed profit-sharing arrangement affect the resource commitments of partners. We model the interaction within an alliance as a noncooperative variable-sum game, in which each firm invests part of its resources to increase the utility of a new product offering. Different types of alliances are modeled by varying how the resources committed by partners in an alliance determine the utility of the jointly-developed new product. We then model the interalliance competition by nesting two independent intra-alliance games in a supergame in which the groups compete for a market. The partners of the winning alliance share the profits in one of two ways: equally or proportionally to their investments. The Nash equilibrium solutions for the resulting games are examined.

In the case of same-function alliances, when the market is large the predicted investment patterns under both profit-sharing rules are comparable. Partners developing new products in parallel, unlike the partners in a same-function alliance, commit fewer resources to their alliance. Further, the profit-sharing arrangement matters in such alliances-partners commit more resources when profits are shared proportionally rather than equally.

We test the predictions of the model in two laboratory experiments. We find that the aggregate behavior of the subjects is accounted for remarkably well by the equilibrium solution. As predicted, profit-sharing arrangement did not affect the investment pattern of subjects in same-function alliances when they were in the high-reward condition. Subjects developing products in parallel invested less than subjects in same-function alliance, irrespective of the reward condition. We notice that theory seems to underpredict investments in low-reward conditions. Aplausible explanation for this departure from the normative benchmark is that subjects in the low-reward condition were influenced by altruistic regard for their partners. These experiments also clarify the support for the mixed strategy equilibrium: aggregate behavior conforms to the equilibrium solution, though the behavior of individual subjects varies substantially from the norm. Individual-level analysis suggests that subjects employ mixed strategies, but not as fully as the theory demands. This inertia in choice of strategies is consistent with learning trends observed in the investment pattern.

A new analysis of Robertson and Gatignon's 1998 field survey data on the conduct of corporate partners in technology alliances is also consistent with our model of samefunction alliances.

We extend the model to consider asymmetric distribution of endowments among partners in a same-function alliance. Then we examine the implication of extending the strategy space to include more levels of investment. Finally, we outline an extension of the model to consider cross-functional alliances.

/pdf/collaborating-to-compete-167sbvrszw.pdf

Collaborating to Compete

Reference groups influence product and brand evaluations, especially when the product is a publicly consumed luxury good. Marketers of such luxury goods need to carefully balance two important social forces: 1 the desire of leaders to distinguish themselves from followers and 2 the countervailing desire of followers to assimilate with leaders. In this paper, we examine the theoretical implications of these social forces for firm prices, product design, and target consumer selection. We show that the presence of reference group effects can motivate firms to add costly features, which provide limited or no functional benefit to consumers. Furthermore, reference group effects can induce product proliferation on one hand and motivate firms to offer limited editions on the other hand. We find that offering a limited edition can increase sales and profits. In some cases, reference group effects can even lead to a buying frenzy.

Research Note---Trading Up: A Strategic Analysis of Reference Group Effects

The iterative elimination of strongly dominated strategies (IESDS) and mixed-equilibrium solution concepts are studied in an iterated two-person investment game with discrete strategy spaces, non-recoverable investments, and either equal or unequal investment capital. In this game, the player investing the largest amount wins the competition and receives a fixed reward; ties are counted as losses. Both cases of symmetric and asymmetric dyads are studied theoretically and experimentally. Results from two experiments provide support for the mixed-strategy equilibrium solution on the aggregate but not the individual level, and evidence for a hierarchy of bounded IESDS.

/pdf/mixed-strategies-and-iterative-elimination-of-strongly-2pj57n7x7r.pdf

Wilfred Amaldoss

Papers

Pricing of Conspicuous Goods: A Competitive Analysis of Social Effects

Conspicuous Consumption and Sophisticated Thinking

Collaborating to Compete

Research Note---Trading Up: A Strategic Analysis of Reference Group Effects

Mixed strategies and iterative elimination of strongly dominated strategies: an experimental investigation of states of knowledge