Weakness of Will and the Free-Rider Problem

1985 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Elster

The study of intrapersonal economic relations, or economics, is still at the programmatic stage. There is no generally accepted paradigm, or even as well-defined set of problems that constitute it as a subdiscipline within economics. Some questions are, however, emerging as foci of interest for a small but increasing number of writers, not just in economics, but also in psychology and philosophy. The writings of Thomas Schelling on self-management, of George Ainslie on self-control, and of Derik Parfit on personal identity testify to this convergence.

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoichiro Fujii ◽  
Michiko Ogaku ◽  
Mahito Okura ◽  
Yusuke Osaki

AbstractSome people have optimistic expectations regarding their accident probability, and thus, refrain from purchasing adequate insurance. This study investigates how insurance firms use advertisements to lower the ratio of optimistic individuals in the market. The main results are as follows: first, the optimal level of advertisements is maximized when the insurance premium is moderate. Second, the maximum level of advertisement varies according to the degree of optimism, which is measured by the difference between accurate and optimistic accident probabilities. Third, the advertisement decision is affected by the free-rider problem, and the equilibrium number of insurance firms with advertisement is always larger than that of firms without advertisement in a competitive insurance market.


1979 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN McMILLAN

Do patents facilitate or frustrate innovation? Lawyers, economists, and politicians who have staked out strong positions in this debate often attempt to validate their claims by invoking the historical record—but they typically get the history wrong. The purpose of this book is to get the history right by showing that patent systems are the product of contending interests at different points in production chains battling over economic surplus. The larger the potential surplus, the more extreme are the efforts of contending parties, now and in the past, to search out, generate, and exploit any and all sources of friction. Patent systems, as human creations, are therefore necessarily ridden with imperfections; nirvana is not on the menu. The most interesting intellectual issue is not how patent systems are imperfect, but why historically US-style patent systems have come to dominate all other methods of encouraging inventive activity. The answer offered by the essays in this volume is that they create a temporary property right that can be traded in a market, thereby facilitating a productive division of labor and making it possible for firms to transfer technological knowledge to one another by overcoming the free-rider problem. Precisely because the value of a patent does not inhere in the award itself but rather in the market value of the resulting property right, patent systems foster a decentralized ecology of inventors and firms that ceaselessly extends the frontiers of what is economically possible.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro F. Bendassolli ◽  
Jairo Eduardo Borges-Andrade ◽  
Sonia Maria Guedes Gondim

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