Date/Time
Date(s) - 29/04/2024
10:00 am - 12:00 pm

Location
Kenneth Taylor Hall, Room 334

Schedule:

• 10:00-10:45: Tanzir Khan – Conditional beliefs and contributions in the public goods game
• 10:50-11:35: Bradley Ruffle – Matching in co-operative education programs: Theory and experiment
• 11:40-12:25: Todd Kaplan – Increasing Employment with Coarse Information
• 12:30-14:00: LUNCH
• 14:00-14:45: Seungjin Han – Monotone Equilibrium Design for Matching Markets with Signaling
• 14:50-15:35: Alan Miller – The Limits of Tolerance

Affiliations and Abstracts

Tanzir Khan, McMaster University, Economics

Title: “Conditional beliefs and contributions in the public goods game” (joint with Bradley Ruffle)

Abstract: in progress.

Bradley Ruffle, McMaster University, Economics

Title: Matching in co-operative education programs: Theory and experiment

Abstract: Most Canadian universities and colleges participate in co-operative education programs whereby each year more than 80,000 co-op students alternate between dedicated for-credit work terms and school terms. Many of these programs utilize a minimum sums algorithm to match students to jobs. We show that this algorithm and all its variations are unstable. We compare experimentally the properties of this algorithm and seemingly improved variations of it with the deferred acceptance algorithm. While the improved versions of the minimum sums algorithm sometimes lead to more truthful reporting of preferences and increase the likelihood of a stable assignment, they all fare worse than the deferred acceptance algorithm. Our data reveal that the superior outcomes associated with deferred acceptance are the result of both the algorithm itself and the behavioral responses it elicits.

Todd Kaplan, University of Haifa, Economics; University of Exeter, Economics

Title: Increasing Employment with Coarse Information (with Surajeet Chakravarty and Luke Lindsay)

Abstract: We investigate whether an agency can increase employment by strategically coarsening information about workers’ skills and abilities to employers. Theoretically, we find that such an increase is possible, and a range of employment levels can be supported in equilibrium. We test this possibility using laboratory experiments under three conditions: full information, coarse and verifiable information, and coarse but not verifiable information.  We find that, compared with full information, both treatments with coarse information increase employment at the expense of the employers’ profits but not to the highest theoretically achievable levels. We also find verifiability affects several aspects of behavior.

Seungjin Han, McMaster University, Economics

Title: Monotone Equilibrium Design for Matching Markets with Signaling (with Alex Sam and Youngki Shin)

Abstract: We study monotone equilibrium design by a planner who chooses an interval of reactions that receivers can take, before senders and receivers move in matching markets with senders’ costly signaling. We provide a method for monotone equilibrium design that uncovers novel insights into a planner’s optimal equilibrium choice. In our nonlinear settings with monotone, supermodular, concave utility functions, the surplus possibility frontier is convex and hence indicates decreasing-returns-to-scale information technology. This frontier expands as senders become less risk averse or the mean and variance of the receiver type distribution increase.

Alan Miller, Western University, Law

Title: The Limits of Tolerance

Abstract: I propose a model of aggregation of intervals relevant to the study of legal standards of tolerance. Seven axioms: responsiveness, anonymity, continuity, strategyproofness, and three variants of neutrality are then used to prove several important results about a new class of aggregation methods called endpoint rules. The class of endpoint rules includes extreme tolerance (allowing anything permitted by anyone) and a form of majoritarianism (the median rule).