http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/ac/handle/10022/AC:P:8 Search the Channel search http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/ac/simple-search http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/ac/handle/10022/AC:P:15745 Title: Game Theory and Industrial Organization <br/> <br/>Author(s): Bagwell, Kyle; Wolinsky, Asher <br/> <br/>Abstract: In this article, we consider how important developments in game theory have contributed to the theory of industrial organization. Our goal is not to survey the theory of industrial organization; rather, we consider the contribution of game theory through a careful discussion of a small number of topics within the industrial organization field. We also identify some points in which developments in the theory of industrial organization have contributed to game theory. The topics that we consider are : commitment in two-stage games and the associated theories of strategic-trade policy and entry deterrence; asymmetric-information games and the associated theories of limit pricing and predation; repeated games with public moves and the associated theory of collusion in markets with public demand fluctuations; mixed-strategy equilibria and purification theory and the associated theory of sales; and repeated games with imperfect monitoring and the associated theory of collusion and price wars. We conclude with a general assessment concerning the contribution of game theory to industrial organization. Wed, 29 Mar 2000 22:58:59 GMT http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/ac/handle/10022/AC:P:15744 Title: African Traditional healers and Outcome: Contingent Contracts in Health Care <br/> <br/>Author(s): Leonard, Kenneth L. <br/> <br/>Abstract: Traditional healers are a source of health care for which Africans have always paid and even with the expansion of modern medicine healers are still popular. This paper advances the unique view that traditional healers neither possess supernatural power nor do they take advantage of their clients: they use important elements of their practice to credibly deliver unobservable medical effort and therefore high quality care. An important element of their practice has previously been ignored: traditional healers use outcome-contingent contracts to deliver unobservable medical effort. This paper presents empirical evidence that, as a result of these contracts, traditional healers are popular because they provide more unobservable medical effort than other providers from which patients can choose. Fri, 28 Apr 2000 22:58:59 GMT http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/ac/handle/10022/AC:P:15743 Title: How to Compensate Physicians When Both Patient and Physician Effort are Unobservable <br/> <br/>Author(s): Leonard, Kenneth L.; Zivin, Joshua <br/> <br/>Abstract: In this paper, we construct a joint production model of health with two sided asymmetric information and ask the question, "How should physicians be compensated?" We demonstrate theoretically that the preferred physician compensation scheme depends on the illness condition. Outcome-contingent payments are better than effort-contingent payments for illnesses in which the efforts of physicians and patients are highly complementary, or in which both types of effort are important to the outcome. Effort-contingent payments are superior when efforts are not highly complementary, or when either physician or patient effort, but not both are important to the outcome. Evidence to support this theory is provided by an empirical analysis of patient choice of health care providers in Africa Sun, 27 Feb 2000 22:58:59 GMT http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/ac/handle/10022/AC:P:15742 Title: Forward-looking behavior, precautionary savings, and borrowing constraints in a poor, agrarian economy: tests using rainfall data <br/> <br/>Author(s): Chaudhuri, Shubham <br/> <br/>Abstract: Household in many poor, agrarian economies derive their income from rain-dependent agriculture. This dependence raises the possibility that, from rainfall patterns early on in the crop-cycle, households accumulate information about future cash inflows (e.g., harvests) before the cashflows are realized. Using detailed longitudinal data from three villages in India, this paper explores whether households utilize this information in the ways suggested by modern consumption theories. Two of the central hypotheses suggested by these theories are that households are forward-looking in their consumption behavior and the react optimally to the receipt of information; and that in the face of uncertainty about future incomes, households engage in precautionary saving. The basic challenge in implementing tests of these hypotheses has been to find empirical measures of the 'news' that households receive, and the uncertainty they face. I show that, in the villages I study, rainfall patterns provide good proxies from which such measures might be constructed. I exploit this fact to test for precautionary saving and forward looking behavior. I find that precautionary saving and forward-looking behavior do not, by themselves, fully explain the observed consumption patterns. However, when I explicitly incorporate the possibility of binding borrowing constraints into the testing strategy, I obtain fairly strong support for the joint hypothesis of precautionary saving and forward-looking behavior in the presence of borrowing constraints. Thu, 29 Jul 1999 22:58:59 GMT