Related papers: Wariness and Poverty Traps
Understanding consumption dynamics and its impact on the whole economy and welfare within the present economic crisis is not an easy task. Indeed the level of consumer demand for different goods varies with the prices, consumer incomes and…
This paper studies optimal consumption and saving decisions under uncertainty about the transition dynamics of the economic environment. We consider a general optimal savings problem in which the exogenous state governing discounting,…
This research investigates the impact of dynamic, time-varying interactions on cooperative behaviour in social dilemmas. Traditional research has focused on deterministic rules governing pairwise interactions, yet the impact of interaction…
Much of economic theory is built on observations of aggregate, rather than individual, behavior. Here, we present novel findings on human shopping patterns at the resolution of a single purchase. Our results suggest that much of our…
This article uses data of subjective Life Satisfaction aggregated to the community level in Canada and examines the spatial interdependencies and spatial spillovers of community happiness. A theoretical model of utility is presented. Using…
In group foraging situations, the conventional expectation is that increased food availability would enhance consumption, especially when animals prioritize maximizing their food intake. This paper challenges this conventional wisdom by…
Machine learning is increasingly used in government programs to identify and support the most vulnerable individuals, prioritizing assistance for those at greatest risk over optimizing aggregate outcomes. This paper examines the welfare…
We study competitive equilibria in exchange economies when a continuum of goods is conflated into a finite set of commodities. The design of conflation choices affects the allocation of scarce resources among agents, by constraining trading…
The impact of rising consumption on wealth inequality remains an open question. Here we revisit and extend the Social Architecture of Capitalism agent-based model proposed by Ian Wright, which reproduces stylized facts of wealth and income…
We consider a version of large population games whose players compete for resources using strategies with adaptable preferences. The system efficiency is measured by the variance of the decisions. In the regime where the system can be…
We introduce a time-varying network model accounting for burstiness and tie reinforcement observed in social networks. The analytical solution indicates a non-trivial phase diagram determined by the competition of the leading terms of the…
We establish when the two problems of minimizing a function of lifetime minimum wealth and of maximizing utility of lifetime consumption result in the same optimal investment strategy on a given open interval $O$ in wealth space. To answer…
In making models for biological systems one expects to grasp the biology and be able to use ones intuition to predict the outcome. This paper is about the discrepancy between what is expected and what is the outcome of the analysis of the…
A growing literature provides evidence on multigenerational inequality -- the extent to which socio-economic advantages persist across three or more generations. This chapter reviews its main findings and implications. Most studies find…
Frailty and resilience models provide a way to introduce random effects in hazard and reversed hazard rate modeling by random variables, called frailty and resilience random variables, respectively, to account for unobserved or unexplained…
Poverty is a multifaceted phenomenon linked to the lack of capabilities of households to earn a sustainable livelihood, increasingly being assessed using multidimensional indicators. Its spatial pattern depends on social, economic,…
This comprehensive study investigates the intricate relationship between water scarcity and agricultural production, emphasizing its critical global significance. The research, through multidimensional analysis, investigates the various…
Machine learning (ML) is increasingly used in high-stakes settings, yet multiplicity - the existence of multiple good models - means that some predictions are essentially arbitrary. ML researchers and philosophers posit that multiplicity…
This paper demonstrates how reinforcement learning can explain two puzzling empirical patterns in household consumption behavior during economic downturns. I develop a model where agents use Q-learning with neural network approximation to…
This paper attempts to find a relationship between agents' risk aversion and inequality of incomes. Specifically, a model is proposed for the evolution in time of surplus/deficit distribution, and the long-time distributions are…