Sobei H. Oda

Decision Making and Institutional Design for Product Lifecycle Management

This paper proposes a new approach to decision making and institutional design for product lifecycle management based on social systems engineering. Product lifecycle problems are limited not only by technological issues, but also by economic and social issues. We construct an agent-based model of decision making systems consisting of human subjects such as producers, consumers, dismantlers and used-unit dealers. The focal point of this study is the analysis of which economic agents should collect used units and how product durability affects the formation of a recycling society. This paper also presents discussion of institutional design by comparing experimental results with current institutions using real-world data for several types of products.

Integration of Economics into Engineering with an Application to the Recycling Market

Abstract This paper describes integration of recent economics concepts Into engineering. Direct and Indirect effects of new technology on its users and society depend on the economic system in which it operates. They can be formulated and analyzed by experimental economics, computational economics and the market microstructure theory, which have all emerged recently in economics. We describe how such Integration can be done both In general and with an example: a recycling economy model. An Integrated approach of engineering and economics that treats human behavior, market structure and technology on an empirical and theoretical basis makes it possible to describe a process whereby used product units are collected from consumers for reuse.

Payoff Levels, Loss Avoidance, and Equilibrium Selection in Games with Multiple Equilibria: An Experimental Study

Game theorists typically assume that changing a games payoff levels - by adding the same constant to, or subtracting it from, all payoffs - should not affect behavior. Although this invariance is an implication of the theory when payoffs mirror expected utilities, it is an empirical question when “payoffs” are actually money amounts. Loss avoidance is a phenomenon where payoff‐level changes matter when they change the signs of payoffs: gains become losses or vice versa. We report the results of a human‐subjects experiment designed to test for two types of loss avoidance: certain‐loss avoidance (avoiding a strategy leading to a sure loss, in favor of an alternative that might lead to a gain) and possible‐loss avoidance (avoiding a strategy leading to a possible loss, in favor of an alternative that leads to a sure gain). Subjects in the experiment play three versions of Stag Hunt, which are identical up to the level of payoffs, under a variety of treatments. We find strong evidence of behavior consistent with certain‐loss avoidance in the experiment. We also find evidence of possible‐loss avoidance, although weaker than that for certain‐loss avoidance. Our results carry implications for theorists modeling real‐life situations with game theory and for experimenters attempting to test theory and interpret observed behavior in terms of theory.

Trade in capital goods generated by international diffusion of technology

Abstract This paper examines the dynamics of national income of developing countries, which must import advanced capital goods so as to use technology which has been learned. The main result is that depending on foreign countries for capital goods has no negative effects on real wage rates, which are determined solely by labour productivity of indigenous industries. The analysis also covers the mechanism of export-oriented growth of developing countries and its effects on developed countries. All of the explanations are quite simple, however, none of them can be derived if international learning or trade in capital goods is ignored.

Does Economics Education Make Bad Citizens? The Effect of Economics Education in Japan.

Does studying economics discourage students’ cooperative mind? Several surveys conducted in the United States have concluded that the answer is yes. The authors conducted a series of economic experiments and questionnaires to consider the question in Japan. The results of the prisoners dilemma experiment and public goods questionnaires showed no differences between the behaviors of economics majors and nonmajors. The uniqueness of economics majors was found in their answers to questions concerning whether they behave honestly if they pick up money. The percentage of economics majors who said that they behave honestly was significantly lower than that of students in other disciplines.

Judgement in Small Decision-Making Problems

This paper experimentally investigates “small decision-making” (SDM) problems on the ground that many common activities include those problems. SDM problems are defined by three main properties [2]. First, they include repeated tasks; the decision makers (DMs) face the same choice problem many times in similar situations. Second, each single choice is not very essential; the alternatives tend to have similar expected value (EV) that may be fairly small. Finally, the DMs do not have objective prior information as to payoff distribution. In choosing among the possible alternatives, the DMs will have to rely on the immediate and unbiased feedback obtained in similar situations in the past.

Simulating a N-person Multi-stage Game for Making a State

This paper describes how a state emerges and collapses that makes it possible for citizens to do something which they will not do voluntarily. The model is a generalisation of the multi-stage game of Okada and Sakakibara (1991). The general model, its mathematical analysis with condition for simplicity and simulations for more general cases are presented. The results of simulations suggest that selfish but rational people may agree to make a state, which grows as the public capital stock accumulates but collapses when the stock reaches a certain level.

An Experimental Analysis of Environmentally Conscious Decision-making for Sustainable Consumption

This study examines problems of environmentally conscious decision-making in resource consumption using experiments with human subjects. Environmentally conscious behavior is an important issue related to environmental problems such as natural resource exhaustion. However, environmentally conscious behavior must confront the dilemma posed by self-interest and public interest. This study constructs a decision-making model of this situation based on a game-theoretical approach. Experiments with human subjects reveal that a sense of crisis of resource exhaustion can influence decision-making. Vast resources are often consumed and resources decrease furiously when adequate resources remain. Environmentally conscious behavior emerges as resources approach exhaustion.

Reinforcement Learning on Monopolistic Intermediary Games: Subject Experiments and Simulation

Decision making processes of consumers and firms have emerged as a prominent field in multi-agent systems. This approach relaxes the strict assumptions in traditional economic theory. However, little attention has been paid to the validation of the simulation itself, because of the difficulty of acquiring field data which is compared with simulated markets.

Price Competition Between Middlemen: An Experimental Study

Recent studies of experimental price competition focus on the number of competitors. For instance, Dufwenberg and Gneezy (2000) examined whether the equilibrium price is attained when the number of competitors is two, three, and four. In these experiments, the subjects knew the supply–demand condition and the number of rounds, and offer ask prices. They are matched randomly in each round. Their result showed that the price does not converge to the competitive one when the number of competitors is two, and that as it increases, the average price approaches the competitive level. Abbink and Brandts (2002) conducted similar experiments and attained similar results. However, Dufwenberg et al. (2002) examined the relation between the price floor (the minimum price) and the price competition. The number of competitors was two. They found that the average price without the price floor is higher than the average price with the price floor. The competition under the price floor treatment is keen because profit can still be made by bidding the minimum price at worst. In our study, we examined how the bid–ask competition influenced the price setting. Does the bid–ask competition increase the ratio of the competitively priced pairs? The number of competitors was two and our study was in line with that of Dufwenberg et al. (2002). We designed the experiment based on the work of Spulber (1999), which dealt with the price competition between middlemen.