John P. Conley

Endogenous Enfranchisement When Groups' Preferences Conflict

In their seminal paper, Aumann, Kurz, and Neyman found the surprising result that the choice of levels of public goods in a democracy is not affected by the distribution of voting rights. This implies that groups of individuals may not value the franchise. This conclusion, however, does not correspond to what we commonly observe. We propose a new model to address the question of enfranchisement. The main feature of our model is that it takes into account natural affinities, such as religion or class, that may exist between voters. This allows us to show that while individuals may not value the vote, they nonetheless value the franchise. We also show that in the presence of nonconvexities, it is more likely that the group in power will grant the franchise when preferences are severely opposed.

Tiebout Economies with Differential Genetic Types and Endogenously Chosen Crowding Characteristics

Abstract We consider a Tiebout economy with differential crowding and public projects in which agents are distinguished by their tastes and genetic endowments. Agents choose which crowding characteristic, for example, a skill, they wish to express, and this affects their value to other members of their jurisdiction, club, firm, etc. An agents choice is influenced both by his genetic endowment, which affects his cost of acquiring crowding characteristics, and by his preferences over which crowding characteristic he expresses. We show that if small groups are strictly effective, the core is equivalent to the set of anonymous competitive equilibrium outcomes, but that the core generally contains taste-homogeneous jurisdictions. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: H41, H72.

The bargaining problem without convexity: Extending the egalitarian and Kalai-Smorodinsky solutions

Abstract We relax the assumption used in axiomatic bargaining theory that the feasible set be convex. Instead we require only that it be 7 comprehensive. We show that on this domain, Kalais (1977) characterization of the egalitarian solution remains true, as does Kalai and Smorodinskys (1975) theorem if we use weak Pareto optimality.

Migration-proof Tiebout equilibrium: existence and asymptotic efficiency

Tiebouts basic claim was that when public goods are local there is an equilibrium and every equilibrium is efficient. The literature seems fall short of verifying this conjecture: If the notion of equilibrium is too weak then equilibrium is nonempty yet some equilibria could be inefficient. On the other hand, if the notion of equilibrium is too strong, then every equilibrium is efficient yet equilibrium may be empty. This paper introduces a new equilibrium notion, a \textit{migration-proof Tiebout equilibrium}, which is a jurisdiction structure such that (i) no consumer wants to migrate unilaterally across jurisdictions (free mobility of consumers), and (ii) no subgroup of consumers want to form a new jurisdiction that would not create instability in population distribution (free entry of migration-proof jurisdictions). We show that there is always a unique migration-proof equilibrium and is asymptotically efficient when consumers are homogeneous.

Optimal sequencing of credible reforms with uncertain outcomes

Abstract We study a two-period representative agent economy in which economic liberalization is modeled as adding a positive random variable to the marginal product of capital. We show liberalization always raises the expected utility of agents. Agents may respond to this by increasing consumption in the first period. Consequently, consumption in the second period is sometimes smaller than the in the first depending on the realization of the random variable. This ‘tail’ may cause the government to reject liberalization of declining GDP enters negatively in the governments objectives. We apply these results to the Chilean experience of the 1980s.

The Effects of Publication Lags on Life‐Cycle Research Productivity in Economics

We investigate how increases in publication delays have affected the life cycle of publications of recent Ph.D. graduates in economics. We construct a panel dataset of 14,271 individuals who were awarded Ph.D.s between 1986 and 2000 in U.S. and Canadian economics departments. For this population of scholars, we amass complete records of publications in peer‐reviewed journals listed in the JEL (a total of 368,672 observations). We find evidence of significantly diminished productivity in recent relative to earlier cohorts when productivity of an individual is measured by the number of AER‐equivalent publications. Diminished productivity is less evident when the number of AER‐equivalent pages is used instead. Our findings are consistent with earlier empirical findings of increasing editorial delays, decreasing acceptance rates at journals, and a trend toward longer manuscripts. This decline in productivity is evident in both graduates of top 30 and non‐top 30 ranked economics departments and may have important implications for what should constitute a tenurable record. We also find that the research rankings of top economics departments are a surprisingly poor predictor of the subsequent research rankings of their Ph.D.s graduates.

But What Have You Done for Me Lately?: Commercial Publishing, Scholarly Communication, and Open-access

We discuss our experience in both commercial and open-access publishing. We argue that; in the papyrocentric (paper-centered) era before 1990; commercial publishers served a useful and necessary purpose. In the electronic era; post 2000; the academy has very little to gain from commercial publishers; who may actually impede rather than facilitate scholarly communication. We consider the costs of running an open-access journal and argue that they are considerably less than is commonly supposed. We describe the role of workflow and content-management software systems and how they can facilitate not only open-access journals; but also working-paper series; conference organization; scholarly societies; and other forms of scholarly communication.

Group Formation in Economics: Coalitions and Clubs: Tiebout Equilibrium in Large Economies

Introduction A central problem in public economics is how to achieve optimal outcomes through price-based mechanisms in economies with public goods. One of the key papers in this area is Samuelson (1954), which provides a formalization of Lindahls approach. Unfortunately, the implied system of personalized prices requires agents to reveal their preferences for public goods truthfully. As Samuelson notes, an agent may therefore have an incentive to misrepresent his true preferences. Thus, it is doubtful that market mechanisms based on the Lindahl prices defined by Samuelson would generally be able to provide public goods efficiently. In response, Tiebout (1956) argued that many types of public goods are subject to crowding and congestion, resulting in the possibility of their provision by local jurisdictions rather than national governments. Jurisdictions offering consumers various bundles of public goods can condition residence in the jurisdiction (and therefore consumption of the public goods) on the payment of taxes. Thus, agents in effect are forced to reveal their willingness to pay for public goods through their locational choice. Tiebout asserted that, in “large” economies, when localities compete for residents and agents, in turn, “vote with their feet” to express demand for public goods, such goods will be efficiently provided. Tiebout (1956) stimulated a large theoretical investigation. Subsequent researchers have shown that, although efficient Tiebout sorting may not occur in completely general circumstances, adding economic restrictions that are natural in the study of clubs or local public goods provides support for Tiebouts hypothesis.

Implementing the nash extension bargaining solution for non-convex problems

Conley and Wilkie (1993) introduced an axiomatization at the Nash extension bargaining solution defined on a domain of comprehensive but not necessarily convex problems. In this paper we present a non-cooperative game which implements the Nash extension solution in subgame perfect equilibria in the limit as the discount rate applied between rounds of play vanishes.

Memetics and voting: how nature may make us public spirited

We consider the classic puzzle of why people turn out for elections in substantial numbers even though formal analysis strongly suggests that rational agents would not vote. If one assumes that voters do not make systematic mistakes, the most plausible explanation seems to be that agents receive a warm glow from the act of voting itself. However, this begs the question of why agents feel a warm glow from participating in the electoral process in the first place. We approach this question from a memetic standpoint. More specifically, we consider a model in which social norms, ideas, values, or more generally, “memes”, influence the behavior of groups of agents, and in turn, induce a kind of competition between value systems. We show, for a range of situations, that groups with a more public-spirited social norm have an advantage over groups that are not as public-spirited. We also explore conditions under which the altruistic behavior resulting from public-spiritedness is disadvantageous. The details depend on the costs of voting, the extent to which different types of citizens agree or disagree over the benefits of various public policies, and the relative proportions of various preference types in the population. We conclude that memetic evolution over social norms may be a force that causes individuals to internalize the benefits that their actions confer on others.