Asha Sadanand

Residential demand response: An overview of recent simulation and modeling applications

This paper reviews recent simulation and modeling applications of residential demand response including demand response enabled load models, home energy management systems, and multi-agent systems. Demand response implementation in residential sectors is a recent effort to improve efficiency of the electricity market and stability of the power system. The benefits are significant; however the investment and potential risks are nonnegligible. Simulation and modeling is a desirable way to identify and quantify impacts and benefits of demand response applications. The two main aims of these applications are to reduce electricity peak demand and to match the demand with renewable energy. The flexible demand aspect enables time-shift electricity consumption by bringing forward or delaying the use of appliances. Therefore, developing applicable residential load models and efficiency home energy management systems are critical issues to allow incorporation of dynamic electric use patterns. Multi-agent systems allows evaluating various components of further power system or smart grid including distributed generator, microgrid, distribution intelligence, etc..

Order of Play, Forward Induction, and Presentation Effects in Two-Person Games

We investigate the effects of order-of-play (simultaneous, unobserved sequential and fully observed sequential play) and form of presentation (extensive vs. normal) in three simple two person games: battle-of-the-sexes with and without outside option and a three strategy game which differentiates between virtual observability (VO) and iterated elimination of dominated strategies as principles of equilibrium selection. VO predicts that knowledge of the order of play alone will affect the distribution of strategies chosen. We contrast this with the predictions of iterated elimination of dominated strategies. We report results from 1800 one-shot games conducted in 6 sessions with 120 subjects and analysed as panel data. The form of presentation strongly affects the distribution of outcomes and strategies. Information about order of play shifts the distribution of strategies away from the distribution in simultaneous play and towards the distribution in fully observed play, especially in the less complicated games presented in normal order. Order-of-play effects are less evident as complexity of the game increases. Extensive form presentation appears to induce sequential thinking even in simultaneously played games.

Strategic delay and endogenous offers in bargaining games with private information

This paperendogenously determines the order of offers and the duration of delay in reaching agreement between buyers and sellers in a continuous-time bargaining game in which a seller wishes to vend an object of known cost to a buyer, to whom the value of the good is private information, and in which each player can choose to strategically delay a response to a previous offer or to interrupt the delay of his rival. Both buyers and sellers are shown to prefer to move first in a model of bargaining in which: (1) either player can make the first offer; (2) after the minimum time has elapsed from the previous offer, either player can make an offer; and (3) players can choose to strategically delay and refrain from making an offer after the previous offer. When the buyer moves first, the equilibrium response for the seller is to accept the offer immediately. When the seller moves first the equilibrium is characterized by the seller making all but the last offer, with minimal feasible delay between successive offers. Observable endogenous delay in reaching an agreement in such equilibria approaches zero as the minimal feasible delay between offers approaches zero. This indicates that in noncooperative bargaining models with private information, where players can strategically delay their offers, endogenizing the order in which players make offers removes the ability of informational asymmetries to generate equilibria exhibiting endogenous delay in reaching an agreement.

Testing the effectiveness of online assignments in theory of finance

ABSTRACT The authors investigated the effectiveness of online versus paper assignments using final examination scores in three cohorts of theory of finance. In particular, two cohorts were exposed to online assignments while another cohort was exposed to traditional assignments. The central result is that exposure to online assignments robustly leads to higher final exam scores, all else being equal. The authors also found a lower level of engagement as shown by low assignment completion rates for students exposed to online assignments.

Female Employment and Violence in the Household: Evidence from the Latin American Demographic and Health Surveys

The relationship between female earnings and violence in the household is negative in the US but not in many other contexts. Recent studies from developing countries suggest that, despite greater financial autonomy, rising female employment is associated with more violence. A generally positive conditional correlation between female employment and violence is here documented using available Demographic and Health Surveys from Latin American countries. These surveys do not suggest that violence is associated with women having less say in decisions regarding resource allocation decisions in households. As well, although levels of violence are higher among less educated women, violence is still very prevalent among women with completed secondary school. These stylized facts suggest that bargaining power and earnings potential are only two of several factors important to the explaining the incidence of violence. Historical data from the 1971 Nicaragua census is here combined with survey data to find that a rise of 0.1 in womens employment propensities is associated with an increase in violence propensities of about 0.01-0.04 in both 1998 and in 2011-12. In Nicaragua, this positive association appears to be concentrated among less-educated women. The results are consistent with violence rising with womens employment because of associated changes in the nature of cooperation between spouses in the provision of household public goods.

Regulatory Adverse Selection in the Life Insurance Market

This paper is concerned with the effects of regulations that prohibit the use of information to risk-rate premiums in a life insurance market. In particular, new information derived from genetic tests is likely to become very relevant in the near to medium term future. Many governments have prohibited the use of this information in ratemaking, thereby generating regulatory adverse selection. In our model, individuals early in their lives neither know their desired level of life insurance later in life nor their mortality risk, but learn both over time. We obtain both positive and normative results which differ qualitatively from those obtained in standard, static models. In particular, we show that legislation prohibiting the use of results from genetic screening tests for ratemaking purposes in the life insurance market may increase welfare.

Protection of Seller's Interests under Buyer's Breach

This note concerns the selection of objectives to be held when compensating sellers for buyers breach. Our legal system employs the objective of the protection of expectation interest, which holds that the seller should be made as well off as he or she would have been had the contract not been broken. Remedies resulting from this objective are very useful as a practical matter, since they indicate to the courts how to achieve the goal they desire. Another possible objective, which would be of academic interest mostly, is economic efficiency. In evaluating the economic efficiency of existing remedies, it is important to consider the effect on the entire market, since the welfare implications of the remedies are often not limited to the two parties to the contract.