1. Entry and Exit Decisions under Uncertainty
2. Investment Under Uncertainty
3. On the Role of Good Faith in Insurance Contracting
4. Arbitration and Information
5. Incentive Contracts for Faith-Based Organizations to Deliver Social Services

1. IMF Programs as Incentive Mechanisms
2. Restoring Fun to Game Theory
3. Paul Samuelson as Teacher
4. Whither Greenwald-Stiglitz
5. John Nash- Founder of Modern Game Theory

Course Outline for ALTERNATIVE MODES OF ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE

a short course given at the NAKE Workshop The Hague, The Netherlands, June 10-14, 2002Avinash Dixit, Princeton University

MOTIVATION AND OUTLINE

In most economic interactions, one or both or all parties have incentives to cheat others. Contracts are intended to prevent such behavior, and thereby allow efficient and mutually beneficial exchanges to take place. In modern advanced economies, the state’s official legal system provides economic governance (contract enforcement), but it is limited by information constraints. Therefore many transactions are organized privately "in the shadow of the law". In other countries and at other times, individuals and groups have to devise their own mechanisms of governance, and these are limited by the need to be self-enforcing (subgame-perfect).

In this brief course we will give an overview of the general issues and discuss a few of them in greater depth using formal models.

CONTRACTS UNDER AN OFFICIAL LEGAL SYSTEM

Essential reading:

George Baker, "The use of performance measures in incentive contracting," American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 90(2), May 2000, 415-420.George Baker, Robert Gibbons, and Kevin J. Murphy, "Subjective performance measures in optimal incentive contracts," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 109, 1994, 1125-56.

General and background reading:

Oliver Williamson, The Mechanisms of Governance, Oxford University Press, 1996, especially chs. 3, 4, 6, 10.Bernard Salanie, The Economics of Contracts, MIT Press, 1997, especially chs. 2, 5, 7.PRIVATE PROTECTION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS

Essential reading:

James Anderson and Oriana Bandiera, "Mafias as enforcers," 2000. Paper available at http://fmwww.bc.edu/ec-p/wp480.pdf

General and background reading:

Yoram Barzel, Economic Analysis of Property Rights, Cambridge University Press, 1989Robert Ellickson, Order Without Law, Harvard University Press, 1991.PRIVATE GOVERNANCE OF CONTRACTS

Essential reading:

Shuhe Li, "The benefits and costs of relation-based governance," 1999. Paper available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=200208Avinash Dixit, "Trade expansion and contract enforcement," 2002. Paper available at http://www.princeton.edu/~dixitak/home/circle.pdfPaul Milgrom, Douglass North and Barry Weingast, "The role of institutions in the revival of trade: The law merchants, private judges, and the Champagne fairs," Economics and Politics 2, 1990, 1-23.Avinash Dixit, "On modes of economic governance," 2001. Paper available at http://www.princeton.edu/~dixitak/home/govmodes.pdf

General and background reading:

Drew Fudenberg, "Explaining cooperation and commitment in repeated games," in Advances in Economic Theory, Vol. I, ed. Jean-Jacques Laffont, Cambridge University Press, 1992.Avner Greif, "Microtheory and recent developments in the study of economic institutions through economic history," in Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Seventh World Congress, Vol. II, eds. David Kreps and Kenneth Wallis, Cambridge University Press, 1997.Avner Greif, "The fundamental problem of exchange: A research agenda in historical institutional analysis," European Review of Economic History, 4, 2000, 251-84.Jean Ensminger, Making a Market, Cambridge University Press, 1992, chs. 2, 4. Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia, Harvard University Press, 1993. James Rauch, "Business and social networks in international trade," Journal of Economic Literature, 39, 2001, 1177-1203.Simon Johnson, John McMillan, and Christopher Woodruff, "Contract enforcement in transition," CEPR Discussion Paper No. 2081, February 1999.COLLECTIVE ACTION

Essential Reading:

Richard Cornes and Todd Sandler, The Theory of Externalities, Public Goods, and Club Goods, Cambridge University Press, second edition 1996, chs. 9, 10.Avinash Dixit and Mancur Olson, "Does voluntary participation undermine the Coase Theorem?" Journal of Public Economics, 26, 2000, 309-335.

General and background reading:

Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons, Cambridge University Press, 1990.Todd Sandler, Collective Action, University of Michigan Press, 1992.

[此贴子已经被作者于2004-8-21 10:31:38编辑过]

这么多好东东，看来要好好读读。他的两本著作《不确定下的投资》和《经济政策的制定》人大出版社都有中译本了，正好对照学习。

xiexie.