Simon Clark

Law, Property, and Marital Dissolution

This paper challenges the view that legal rights are not important in affecting whether people divorce, but it puts as much emphasis on property rights (given, for example, by the law on alimony) as on dissolution rights. The paper sets out two stylised models of marriage and examines the consequences of fuller compensation for economic sacrifices made during marriage. If the dominant economic issue in a marriage is who undertakes household tasks then a law giving fuller compensation makes divorce more likely. If the dominant issue is child custody, divorce is less likely.

The Uniqueness of Stable Matchings

This paper analyses conditions on agents preferences for a unique stable matching in models of two-sided matching with non-transferable utility. The No Crossing Condition (NCC) is sufficient for uniqueness; it is based on the notion that a persons characteristics, for example their personal qualities or their productive capabilities, not only form the basis of their own attraction to the opposite sex but also determine their own preferences. The paper also shows that a weaker condition, alpha-reducibility, is both necessary and sufficient for a population and any of its subpopulations to have a unique stable matching. If preferences are based on utility functions with agents characteristics as arguments, then the NCC may be easy to verify. The paper explores conditions on utility functions which imply that the NCC is satisfied whatever the distribution of characteristics. The usefulness of this approach is illustrated by two simple models of household formation.

Inventory Accumulation, Wages, and Employment

This paper analyzes the effect of inventory accumulation on the outcome of wage and employment agreements between a union and a firm. A two-period model is set up, with bargaining in each period, and the paper analyzes under what circumstances inventories will be held even if demand and production conditions are constant. It is found that inventories have an important strategic role. They bring forward employment and strengthen the bargaining position of the firm in the later period. However, the firms strategic use of inventories will generally be to the detriment of both parties. Copyright 1991 by Royal Economic Society.

Inventories and Strikes

This paper analyzes a dynamic model of bargaining and strikes in which the reservation wage of union members in each period is private information. The model endogenizes the firms decision to accumulate inventories of finished goods in order to enhance its bargaining position. With higher inventories, the firm makes a lower wage offer, thereby accepting an increased probability of a strike. The model can help explain empirical results that have found a positive correlation between wages and inventory accumulation. It also shows that, unless inventories are controlled for, strike incidence will exhibit a spurious negative state dependence. Copyright 1997 by The London School of Economics and Political Science

Comparing iterative planning procedures: A proposed method and some numerical results

Abstract This paper outlines a framework due to Hurwicz for comparing resource allocation mechanisms and applies it to the comparison of iterative planning procedures. Using an extended numerical example two procedures, due to Malinvaud and to Chander, are compared and light is shed on a disagreement between Chander and Kundu and the author.

Informational and Performance Properties of a Class of Iterative Planning Procedures

This paper analyses a class of iterative planning procedures that can be applied in environments describable by the Leontief-Samuelson technology. Members of the class are distinguished by the extent of the communication of technical information from firms to the Centre. All members of the class are monotonic and convergent, but the speed and finiteness of convergence is shown to depend critically on the extent of the transfer of technical information throughout each procedure. The paper thus establishes a trade-off between the informational and performance properties of a class of resource allocation mechanisms, taking environmental coverage as given.

Information, Incentives and the Economics of Control.

This 1992 book examines alternative methods for achieving optimality without all the apparatus of economic planning (such as information retrieval, computation of solutions, and separate implementation systems), or a vain reliance on sufficiently perfect competition. All rely entirely on the self-interest of economic agents and voluntary contract. The author considers methods involving feedback iterative controls which require the prior selection of a criterion function, but no prior calculation of optimal quantities. The target is adjusted as the results for each step become data for the criterion function. Implementation is built in by the incentive structure, and all controls rely on consistency with the self-interest of individuals. The applicability of all the methods is shown to be independent of the form of ownership of enterprises: examples are given for industries which are wholly privately owned, wholly nationalized, mixed and labour-managed.