On some geometry and equivalence classes of normal form games

Equivalence classes of normal form games are defined using the geometryof correspondences of standard equilibiurm concepts like correlated, Nash,and robust equilibrium or risk dominance and rationalizability. Resultingequivalence classes are fully characterized and compared across differentequilibrium concepts for 2 x 2 games. It is argued that the procedure canlead to broad and game-theoretically meaningful distinctions of games aswell as to alternative ways of viewing and testing equilibrium concepts.Larger games are also briefly considered.

Organização e Publicação dos Termos do Website da ANACOM sob uma Perspetiva Linked Open Data

O propósito da Web Semântica é conseguir uma Web de dados totalmente ligada, isto é, numa perspetiva Linked Open Data. A Web Semântica deve garantir (estabelecendo padrões tecnológicos, vocabulários, linguagens lógicas, etc.) que os conteúdos publicados na Websejam inteligíveis quer por agentes humanos, quer por agentes máquina. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo responder à um problema delimitado, propondo uma solução no quadro da Web Semântica e suas tecnologias. Partindo-se de uma lista de termos em linguagem natural utilizados no Website da ANACOM (Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações), propomos uma organização de acordo com metodologias de construção de ontologias e vocabulários. Inspirámo-nos em duas metodologias, o Ontology Development 101 e o Process and Methodology for Core Vocabularies. O vocabulário controlado resultante, tem como base tecnológica o modelo de organização de conhecimento, recomendado pelo W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), o SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System). Trata-sede uma tecnologia standard da W3C desde 2009, utilizada na criação de tesauros,esquemas de classificação, taxonomias, glossários e outros tipos de vocabulários controlados. Como resultado da nossa intervenção, conseguimos organizar e codificar em SKOS, cerca de cinco centenas de termos identificados no Website da ANACOM. Para além da proposta do vocabulário controlado, passámos em revista às tecnologias e teorias que sustentam a temática da Web Semântica.

A new highly penetrant form of obesity due to deletions on chromosome 16p11.2.

Obesity has become a major worldwide challenge to public health, owing to an interaction between the Western 'obesogenic' environment and a strong genetic contribution. Recent extensive genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified numerous single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with obesity, but these loci together account for only a small fraction of the known heritable component. Thus, the 'common disease, common variant' hypothesis is increasingly coming under challenge. Here we report a highly penetrant form of obesity, initially observed in 31 subjects who were heterozygous for deletions of at least 593 kilobases at 16p11.2 and whose ascertainment included cognitive deficits. Nineteen similar deletions were identified from GWAS data in 16,053 individuals from eight European cohorts. These deletions were absent from healthy non-obese controls and accounted for 0.7% of our morbid obesity cases (body mass index (BMI) >or= 40 kg m(-2) or BMI standard deviation score >or= 4; P = 6.4 x 10(-8), odds ratio 43.0), demonstrating the potential importance in common disease of rare variants with strong effects. This highlights a promising strategy for identifying missing heritability in obesity and other complex traits: cohorts with extreme phenotypes are likely to be enriched for rare variants, thereby improving power for their discovery. Subsequent analysis of the loci so identified may well reveal additional rare variants that further contribute to the missing heritability, as recently reported for SIM1 (ref. 3). The most productive approach may therefore be to combine the 'power of the extreme' in small, well-phenotyped cohorts, with targeted follow-up in case-control and population cohorts.

Economic rationality and ethical behavior

This paper argues that economic rationality and ethical behavior cannotbe reduced one to the other, casting doubts on the validity of formulaslike 'profit is ethical' or 'ethics pays'. In order to express ethicaldilemmas as opposing economic interest with ethical concerns, we proposea model of rational behavior that combines these two irreducible dimensions in an open but not arbitrary manner. Behaviors that are neither ethicalnor profitable are considered irrational (non-arbitrariness). However,behaviors that are profitable but unethical, and behaviors that are ethicalbut not profitable, are all treated as rational (openness). Combiningethical concerns with economic interest, ethical business is in turn anoptimal form of rationality between venality and sacrifice.Because every one prefers to communicate that he acts ethically, ethicalbusiness remains ambiguous until some economic interest is actuallysacrificed. We argue however that ethical business has an interest indemonstrating its consistency between communication and behavior by atransparent attitude. On the other hand, venal behaviors must remainconfidential to hide the corresponding lack of consistency. Thisdiscursive approach based on transparency and confidentiality helpsto further distinguish between ethical and unethical business behaviors.

On the origins of electoral systems and political parties. The role of elections in multi-member districts

The old, understudied electoral system composed of multi-member districts, open ballot and plurality rule is presented as the most remote scene of the origin of both political parties and new electoral systems. A survey of the uses of this set of electoral rules in different parts of the world during remote and recent periods shows its wide spread. A model of voting by this electoral system demonstrates that, while it can produce varied and pluralistic representation, it also provides incentives to form factional or partisan candidacies. Famous negative reactions to the emergence of factions and political parties during the 18th and 19th centuries are reinterpreted in this context. Many electoral rules and procedures invented since the second half of the 19th century, including the Australian ballot, single-member districts, limited and cumulative ballots, and proportional representation rules, derived from the search to reduce the effects of the originating multi-member district system in favor of a single party sweep. The general relations between political parties and electoral systems are restated to account for the foundational stage here discussed.

A structural model of Australia as a small open economy

This paper sets up and estimates a structuralmodel of Australia as a small open economyusing Bayesian techniques. Unlike other recentstudies, the paper shows that a small microfoundedmodel can capture the open economydimensions quite well. Specifically, the modelattributes a substantial fraction of the volatilityof domestic output and inflation to foreigndisturbances, close to what is suggested by unrestrictedVAR studies. The paper also investigatesthe effects of various exogenous shockson the Australian economy.

Management of severe pediatric subglottic stenosis with glottic involvement.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to describe our experience in the management of complex glotto-subglottic stenosis in the pediatric age group. METHODS: Between 1978 and 2008, 33 children with glotto-subglottic stenosis underwent partial cricotracheal resection, and they form the focus of this study. They were compared with 67 children with isolated subglottic stenosis (no glottic involvement). The outcomes measured were need for revision open surgical intervention, delayed decannulation (>6 months), and operation-specific and overall decannulation rates. Fisher's exact test was used for comparison of outcomes. RESULTS: Results of preoperative evaluation showed Myer-Cotton grade III or IV stenosis in 32 (97%) patients and grade II stenosis in 1 patient. All patients with glotto-subglottic stenosis were treated with partial cricotracheal resection and simultaneous repair of the glottic pathology. Bilateral fixed vocal cords were seen in 19 (58%) of 33 patients, bilateral restricted abduction was seen in 7 (21%) of 33 patients, and unilateral fixed vocal cord was seen in 7 (21%) of 33 patients. Ten patients underwent single-stage partial cricotracheal resection with excision of interarytenoid scar tissue. The endotracheal tube was kept for a mean period of 7 days as a stent. Twenty-three patients underwent extended partial cricotracheal resection with LT-Mold (Bredam S.A., St. Sulpice, Switzerland) or T-tube stenting. The overall decannulation rate included 26 (79%) patients, and the operation-specific decannulation rate included 20 (61%) patients. CONCLUSIONS: Glotto-subglottic stenosis is a complex laryngeal injury associated with delayed decannulation and decreased overall and operation-specific decannulation rates when compared with those after subglottic stenosis without glottic involvement after partial cricotracheal resection.

What form of relative performance evaluation?

We study relative performance evaluation in executive compensation whenexecutives have private information about their ability. We assume that thejoint distribution of an individual firm s profit and market movements dependson the ability of the executive that runs the firm. In the equilibrium of theexecutive labor market, compensation schemes exploit this fact to sortexecutives of di ?erent abilities. This implies that executive compensation isincreasing in own performance, but may also be increasing in industryperformance-a sharp departure from standard relative performance evaluation.This result provides an explanation for the scarcity of relative performanceconsiderations in executive compensation documented by the empirical literature.

A medium-scale open economy model of Australia

We estimate an open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE)model of Australia with a number of shocks, frictions and rigidities, matching alarge number of observable time series. We find that both foreign and domesticshocks are important drivers of the Australian business cycle.We also find that theinitial impact on inflation of an increase in demand for Australian commoditiesis negative, due to an improvement in the real exchange rate, though there is apersistent positive effect on inflation that dominates at longer horizons.

Monetary policy and exchange rate volatility in a small open economy

We lay out a small open economy version of the Calvo sticky price model, and show how the equilibrium dynamics can be reduced to simple representation in domestic inflation and the output gap. We use the resulting framework to analyze the macroeconomic implications of three alternative rule-based policy regimes for the small open economy: domestic inflation and CPI-based Taylor rules, and an exchange rate peg. We show that a key difference amongthese regimes lies in the relative amount of exchange rate volatility that they entail. We also discuss a special case for which domestic inflation targeting constitutes the optimal policy, and where a simple second order approximation to the utility of the representative consumer can be derived and used to evaluate the welfare losses associated with the suboptimal rules.

The choice of the form of representation in multinational banking: Evidence from Spain

This paper investigates foreign direct investment in the bankingsector. The attention has been addressed to test the importanceof OLI advantages as the determinants of the bank's decisionto invest in foreign locations. Nevertheless, since banks canexpand their activities abroad through different organizationalforms that imply different levels of foreign involvement, theissue of the form of representation has been tackled. Theresults show the importance of OLI advantages in the form ofrepresentation in multinational banking.

Causal assessment in finite extensive-form games

Two finite extensive-form games are empirically equivalent when theempirical distribution on action profiles generated by every behaviorstrategy in one can also be generated by an appropriately chosen behaviorstrategy in the other. This paper provides a characterization ofempirical equivalence. The central idea is to relate a game's informationstructure to the conditional independencies in the empirical distributionsit generates. We present a new analytical device, the influence opportunitydiagram of a game, describe how such a diagram is constructed for a givenextensive-form game, and demonstrate that it provides a complete summaryof the information needed to test empirical equivalence between two games.

Stochastic evolution of rules for playing normal form games

The evolution of boundedly rational rules for playing normal form games is studied within stationary environments ofstochastically changing games. Rules are viewed as algorithms prescribing strategies for the different normal formgames that arise. It is shown that many of the folk results of evolutionary game theory typically obtained witha fixed game and fixed strategies carry over to the present case. The results are also related to recent experimentson rules and games.

How do very open economies adjust to large immigration flows? Recent evidence from Spanish regions

In recent years, Spain has received unprecedented immigration flows. Between 2001 and 2006 the fraction of the population born abroad more than doubled, increasing from4.8% to 10.8%. For Spanish provinces with above-median inflows (relative to population),immigration increased by 24% the number of high school dropouts while only increasingcollege graduates by 11%. We study different channels by which regional labor markets haveabsorbed the large increase in relative supply of low educated workers. We identify theexogenous supply shock using historical immigrant settlement patterns by country of origin.Using data from the Labor Force Survey and the decennial Census, we find a large expansion ofemployment in high immigration regions. Disaggregating by industry, the absorption operatedthrough large increases in the share of low-educated workers, compared to the same industry inlow-immigration regions. We do not find changes in sectoral specialization. Overall, andperhaps surprisingly, the pattern of absorption is very similar to the one found in the US.