Economic Theory
Simple Economies with Multiple Equilibria (with Ken-Ichi Shimomura and Takehiko Yamato) (2008)
This paper studies a general class of pure exchange economies that have multiple equilibria, which...
Solving the Beautiful Mind Coordination Problem (2007)
There are n boys and m girls. The boys are all expected utility maximizers and...
Rationality and Personality in a Restaurant Entry Game: Is there an Entrepreneurial Personality Type? (with Jon C. Sonstelie), Department of Economics, UCSB (2006)
Students in a large principles class participated in a market experiment in which they had...
Natural Kantian or Zoo Economicus? Evolutionary theories of selfishness and altruism among men and beasts, Handbook on the economics of giving, reciprocity and altruism (2006)
This paper addresses the question of whether our evolutionary history suggests that humans are likely...
Log-concave probability and its applications (with Mark Bagnoli), Economic Theory (2005)
In many applications,assumptions about the log-concavity of a probability distribution allow just enough special structure...
Economics of Altruism
One Chance in a Million: Altruism and the Bone Marrow Registry (with Rod Garratt and Damien Sheehan-Connor), Department of Economics, UCSB (2008)
Transplants of donated stem cells save the lives of many patients with blood diseases. Donation...
Some Evolutionary Economics of Family Partnerships, Department of Economics, UCSB (2007)
The article focuses on the economics of family partnerships. It states an allegory involving a...
The Algebra of Assortative Encounters and the Evolution of Cooperation, International Game Theory Review (2003)
This paper explores the way that assortative matching can maintain cooperative behavior under evolutionary dynamics.
The Iron Law of Selfishness: Response to a comment by Alexander Field, Journal of Economic Perspectives (2003)
Alexander Field was not convinced of a result that I claimed in my JEP 2001...
Evolution and Group Behavior: Individual and Group Selection, Department of Economics, UCSB (2002)
How selfish does our evolutionary history suggest that humans will be? We explore models in...
Economics of Publications
Differences in Impact Factor Across Fields and Over Time (with Benjamin M. Althouse, Jevin D. West, and Carl T. Bergstrom), Department of Economics, UCSB (2008)
The impact factor of an academic journal for any year is the number of times...
How often do economists self-archive? (with Rosemarie Lavaty), Department of Economics, UCSB (2007)
To answer the question of the paper's title, we looked at the tables of contents...
The economics of ecology journals (with Carl T. Bergstrom), Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2007)
Large commercial publishers charge dramatically higher prices to institutions than do non-profit publishers. These price...
Pricing and Cost of Electronic Journals, Department of Economics, UCSB (2002)
Here are two comments published by the JEP on my 2001 journals paper my response....
Do University Site Licenses for Academic Journals Benefit the Scientific Community? (with Carl T. Bergstrom), Department of Economics, UCSB (2001)
When academic journals were distributed only as paper editions, the obvious way for scholars to...
Economics of the Family
Evolution of Behavior in Family Games, Department of Economics, UCSB (2000)
William Hamilton developed the biological theory of kin selection before game theory became familiar to...
Does Mother Nature Punish Rotten Kids? (with Carl T. Bergstrom), Journal of Bioeconomics (1999)
The theory of parent-offspring conflict predicts that mothers and their offspring may not agree about...
Economics in a Family Way, Journal of Economic Literature (1996)
This paper is an advertisement for some facts and ideas that I think likely to...
Income Prospects and Age at Marriage (with Bob Schoeni), Journal of Population Economics (1996)
In an earlier paper Courtship as a Waiting Game, Mark Bagnoli and I proposed a...
A Survey of Theories of the Family, Handbook of Population and Family Economics (1995)
This review explores the theory of household technology and the associated possibilities for distributing utility...
Evolution and Economics
Some Evolutionary Economics of Family Partnerships, Department of Economics, UCSB (2007)
The article focuses on the economics of family partnerships. It states an allegory involving a...
Natural Kantian or Zoo Economicus? Evolutionary theories of selfishness and altruism among men and beasts, Handbook on the economics of giving, reciprocity and altruism (2006)
This paper addresses the question of whether our evolutionary history suggests that humans are likely...
The Costs and Benefits of Library Site Licenses to Academic Journals (with Carl T. Bergstrom), Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (2004)
Scientific publishing is rapidly shifting from a paper-based system to one of predominantly electronic distribution,...
The Algebra of Assortative Encounters and the Evolution of Cooperation, International Game Theory Review (2003)
This paper explores the way that assortative matching can maintain cooperative behavior under evolutionary dynamics.
The Iron Law of Selfishness: Response to a comment by Alexander Field, Journal of Economic Perspectives (2003)
Alexander Field was not convinced of a result that I claimed in my JEP 2001...
Health Economics
One Chance in a Million: Altruism and the Bone Marrow Registry (with Rod Garratt and Damien Sheehan-Connor), Department of Economics, UCSB (2008)
Transplants of donated stem cells save the lives of many patients with blood diseases. Donation...
Medical Care, Medical Insurance, and Survival Probability--The True Cost of Living, Economic Aspects of Health (1982)
This paper incorporates medical insurance, life insurance, annuities, and the value of risks to human...
Public Finance
One Chance in a Million: Altruism and the Bone Marrow Registry (with Rod Garratt and Damien Sheehan-Connor), Department of Economics, UCSB (2008)
Transplants of donated stem cells save the lives of many patients with blood diseases. Donation...
Natural Kantian or Zoo Economicus? Evolutionary theories of selfishness and altruism among men and beasts, Handbook on the economics of giving, reciprocity and altruism (2006)
This paper addresses the question of whether our evolutionary history suggests that humans are likely...
Benefit-cost in a Benevolent Society, American Economic Review (2006)
How should benefit-cost analysis account for the value that benevolent individuals place on other people's...
Demographics and the Political Sustainability of Pay-as-you-go Social Security (with John Hartman), Department of Economics, UCSB (2005)
The net present value of costs and benefits from a pay-as-you-go social security system are...
Comment on The Welfare Loss from Price Distortion, Department of Economics, UCSB (1996)
One of the most disconcerting results in welfare economics is the "paradox of the second...
Resource Economics
Some Simple Analytics of Peak-Load Pricing (with Jeffrey K. Mackie-Mason), Rand Journal of Economics (1991)
Consider a public utility that offers its service at two different times. We study the...
Property Rights and Taxation in the Australian Minerals Sector, The Minerals Sector and the Australian Economy (1984)
Mineral deposits in Australia are generally owned by states. Exploration licenses and mining leases are...
On capturing oil rents with a national excise tax, American Economic Review (1982)
This paper argues that since the supply of oil in the ground is inelastic, the...
Efficiency-Inducing Taxation for a Monopolistically Supplied Depletable Resource (with John Cross and Dick Porter), Department of Economics, UCSB (1981)
We show that for a depletable resource, if the competitive time path of prices is...
Regulation of Externalities, Journal of Public Economics (1976)
This paper presents a general equilibrium model with marketable pollution permits. It shows that competitive...
Teaching Economics
Teaching Economics Interactively: A Cannibal's Dinner Party, Department of Economics, UCSB (2007)
This paper describes techniques that I use to teach economics principles "interactively". These techniques include...
Rationality and Personality in a Restaurant Entry Game: Is there an Entrepreneurial Personality Type? (with Jon C. Sonstelie), Department of Economics, UCSB (2006)
Students in a large principles class participated in a market experiment in which they had...
Extracting Valuable Information from Classroom Trading Pits (with Eugene Kwok), Journal of Economic Education (2005)
Edward Chamberlin, who initiated classroom market experiences, used the results of his experiments to argue...
Experimental Markets and Chamberlin's Excess Trading Conjecture, Department of Economics, UCSB (2004)
Edward Chamberlin conjectured that the number of trades in realistic trading systems is likely to...
No subject area
The costs and benefits of library site licenses to academic journals (with Carl T. Bergstrom), Department of Economics, UCSB (2004)
Scientific publishing is rapidly shifting from a paper-based system to one of predominantly electronic distribution,...
Log-concave Probability and its Applications (with Mark Bagnoli), Department of Economics, UCSB (2004)
In many applications, assumptions about the log-concavity of a probability distribution allow just enough...
Evolution of Social Behavior: Individual and Group Selection Models, Department of Economics, UCSB (2001)
The Algebra of Assortative Encounters and the Evolution of Cooperation , Department of Economics, UCSB (2001)
This paper explores the quantitative relation between non random, assortative matching and the maintenance of...
Free Labor for Costly Journals , Department of Economics, UCSB (2001)
Commercial publishers charge libraries about 6 times as much per page and 16 times as...