12,691 research outputs found
MABS validation through repeated execution and data mining analysis
No full textAgent Based Modelling is the most interesting and advanced approach for simulating a complex system: in a social context, the single parts and the whole are often very hard to describe in detail. Besides, there are agent based formalisms which allow to study the emergency of social behaviour with the creation and study of models, known as artificial societies. Thanks to the ever increasing computational power, it's been possible to use such models to create software, based on intelligent agents, which aggregate behaviour is complex and difficult to predict, and can be used in open and distributed systems. Data mining is born in the last decades in order to help users in finding useful knowledge from the otherwise overwhelming amount of data available nowadays from the web and the data collected every day by companies. Data Mining techniques can therefore be the keystone to reveal non-trivial knowledge expressed by the initial assumption used to build the micro-level of the model and the structure of the society of agents that emerged from the simulation
Facades of the Libreria di San Marco in Venice, The: An Interpretation of the Design Process
No full text"A new work in which I propose an interpretation of the design process Sansovino used to create the magnificent facades of the Libreria di San Marco in Venice, a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture." Sent to Marquand librarian by author Dec. 202
Why wages don't fall in jobs with incomplete contracts
No full textWe investigate how the incompleteness of an employment contract -discretionary and non-contractible effort - can affect an employer's decision about cutting nominal wages. Using matched employer-employee payroll data from Great Britain, linked to a survey of managers, we find support for the main predictions of a stylised theoretical framework of wage determination: nominal cuts are at most half as likely when managers believe their employees have significant discretion over how they do their work, though the involvement of employees, via information sharing, reduces this correlation. We also describe how contract incompleteness and wage cuts vary across different jobs. These findings provide the first observational quantitative evidence that managerial beliefs about contractual incompleteness can account for their hesitancy over nominal wage cuts. This has long been conjectured by economists based on anecdotes, qualitative surveys, and laboratory and field experiments.Output Status: Forthcomin
Art without an Author: Vasari’s Lives and Michelangelo’s Death
No full textMonografia sulla rappresentazione di Michelangelo nelle due edizioni delle Vite, sulla storia del libro e la questione della sua paternitàBook dedicated to the representation of Michelangelo in Vasari's Lives of the Artists, to the history of the book, and to the problem of its authorshi
Does pay inequality affect worker effort? An assessment of experimental designs and evidence
No full textInternational audienceThis paper develops a theoretical framework to think about employees' effort choices, and applies this framework to assess the ability of existing experimental designs to identify the effect of pay inequality on worker effort. The analysis shows that failure to control for a number of confounds—such as reciprocity towards the employer in multi-lateral gift-exchange games (vertical fairness), or the incentive to increase effort when feeling underpaid under piece rates (income targeting)—may lead to inaccurate interpretation of evidence of treatment effects. In light of these findings, the paper provides a set of recommendations on how to improve identification in the design of controlled experiments in the future
Costly Wage Cuts, Relative Wage Comparisons, and Unemployment Hysteresis
No full textThis paper advances a theory of unemployment hysteresis—transitory shocks leave permanent effects—based on a model of endogenous path-dependent wage rigidity under incomplete employment contracts. Workers’ relative wage comparisons—incumbents’ aversion to wage cuts and new hires’ concern with pay inequality—imply wage increases are partially irreversible, generating path dependence and asymmetry in wage adjustments. During recessions, hiring wages fail to adjust fully downward, depressing job creation and producing hysteresis effects and large unemployment fluctuations. A quantitative assessment shows that these effects can be significant under plausible calibrations of the cost of wage cuts and the sensitivity of workers to relative wages. A 1% transitory shock can generate a permanent increase in unemployment of about 0.5% to 15%, with benchmark values around 1.5–5.5%. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the theory for the effectiveness of monetary policy and the empirical research on hysteresis effects, suggesting promising directions for future research
Workers' Reciprocity and the (Ir)relevance of Wage Cyclicality for the Volatility of Job Creation
No full textIn the last two decades advances in the theory of labour market fluctuations have emphasised the role of new hires' wage rigidity—rather than wage rigidity of existing workers—to explain the large volatility of unemployment observed in the data. However, recent evidence suggests that wages paid to newly hired workers are substantially pro-cyclical. By considering the effect that wage changes can have on workers' effort, and therefore on output, this paper provides two novel theoretical results. First, it is shown that the anticipation by firms of the effort response of new hires to wage changes can amplify the magnitude of shocks to the extent that, in contrast with the existing literature, the cyclicality of the hiring wage becomes irrelevant for their decision to hire new workers, and hence for the volatility of job creation. Second, it is shown that firms' expectation of existing workers' downward wage rigidity—and the anticipation of their negative reciprocity response to future wage cuts—does matter for the expected value of posting a new vacancy, and under certain conditions it may even reduce firms' incentive to hire
Asymmetric reciprocity, reference wage formation, and the theory of wages and unemployment
No full textThis thesis contributes to the theory of wages and unemployment through an indepth theoretical analysis of firms' wage setting and hiring decisions and workers' perceptions of fairness and attitude in the production process.;Chapter 1 develops a microeconomic theory of wage setting behaviour based on contractual incompleteness, fairness, reciprocity and reference dependence and loss aversion in the evaluation of wage contracts by workers. The chapter makes the following contributions: it provides a theoretical explanation for wage rigidity in a dynamic environment; it offers a psychological foundation for asymmetric reciprocity, identifying loss aversion as the driver of negative reciprocity being stronger than positive reciprocity; and it analyses the implications of "asymmetric reference-dependent reciprocity" and anticipated wage rigidity for optimal wage setting and hiring behaviour.;Chapter 2 incorporates the theory developed in Chapter 1 into a canonical search and matching framework and analyses its macroeconomic implications. In so doing the chapter contributes to the literature of labour market fluctuations from a novel behavioural perspective. In contrast to existing theoretical results, in the presence of reference-dependent reciprocity the cyclicality of the hiring wage is shown to be irrelevant for the volatility of vacancies and unemployment.;Moreover, the novel behavioural aspects introduced turn out to be qualitatively and quantitatively important in determining the size of the surplus from new employment relationships. Finally, by considering the role of uncertainty, it is shown that the expectation by firms of downward wage rigidity dampens hiring incentives and increases the volatility of both job creation and unemployment;Chapter 3 explores the concept of the reference "fair" wage in depth. Building on a large body of research that has explored the concepts of fairness, reference dependence, and social norms and identity, this chapter develops a general, and portable, analytical framework to model reference wage formation. Several inherent properties of the reference wage are formalised: the intrinsic tendency of workers to adapt their reference wage over time; the role of readily available information, which can also be "manipulated" by the firmand/or third parties; and asymmetries in fairness evaluations.;This framework is applied to study the implications of asymmetric partial adaptation of the reference wage for wage and reciprocity dynamics; and the effect of relative wage comparisons between newly hired and incumbent workers for the cyclical behaviour of vacancies and unemployment.This thesis contributes to the theory of wages and unemployment through an indepth theoretical analysis of firms' wage setting and hiring decisions and workers' perceptions of fairness and attitude in the production process.;Chapter 1 develops a microeconomic theory of wage setting behaviour based on contractual incompleteness, fairness, reciprocity and reference dependence and loss aversion in the evaluation of wage contracts by workers. The chapter makes the following contributions: it provides a theoretical explanation for wage rigidity in a dynamic environment; it offers a psychological foundation for asymmetric reciprocity, identifying loss aversion as the driver of negative reciprocity being stronger than positive reciprocity; and it analyses the implications of "asymmetric reference-dependent reciprocity" and anticipated wage rigidity for optimal wage setting and hiring behaviour.;Chapter 2 incorporates the theory developed in Chapter 1 into a canonical search and matching framework and analyses its macroeconomic implications. In so doing the chapter contributes to the literature of labour market fluctuations from a novel behavioural perspective. In contrast to existing theoretical results, in the presence of reference-dependent reciprocity the cyclicality of the hiring wage is shown to be irrelevant for the volatility of vacancies and unemployment.;Moreover, the novel behavioural aspects introduced turn out to be qualitatively and quantitatively important in determining the size of the surplus from new employment relationships. Finally, by considering the role of uncertainty, it is shown that the expectation by firms of downward wage rigidity dampens hiring incentives and increases the volatility of both job creation and unemployment;Chapter 3 explores the concept of the reference "fair" wage in depth. Building on a large body of research that has explored the concepts of fairness, reference dependence, and social norms and identity, this chapter develops a general, and portable, analytical framework to model reference wage formation. Several inherent properties of the reference wage are formalised: the intrinsic tendency of workers to adapt their reference wage over time; the role of readily available information, which can also be "manipulated" by the firmand/or third parties; and asymmetries in fairness evaluations.;This framework is applied to study the implications of asymmetric partial adaptation of the reference wage for wage and reciprocity dynamics; and the effect of relative wage comparisons between newly hired and incumbent workers for the cyclical behaviour of vacancies and unemployment
A Theoretical Note on Assymmetries in Intensity and Persistence of Reciprocity in Labour Markets
No full textThis paper presents a model that can account for, and explain, two well documented empirical asymmetries characterising a worker's reciprocity: negative reciprocity is both stronger, and more persistent, than positive reciprocity. The stronger intensity of negative reciprocity is driven by the worker being loss averse; the longer persistence is driven by the slower adaptation of the worker to wage changes that are perceived as unfair
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