Blocking Coalitions and Fairness in Asset Markets and Asymmetric Information Economies

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anuj Bhowmik ◽  
Maria Gabriella Graziano

AbstractThis paper analyses two properties of the core in a two-period exchange economy under uncertainty: the veto power of arbitrary sized coalitions; and coalitional fairness of core allocations. We study these properties in relation to classical (static) and sequential (dynamic) core notions and apply our results to asset markets and asymmetric information models. We develop a formal setting where consumption sets have no lower bound and impose a series of general restrictions on the first period trades of each agent. All our results are applications of the same lemma about improvements to an allocation that is either non-core or non-coalitionally fair. Roughly speaking, the lemma states that if all the members of a coalition achieve a better allocation in some way (for instance, by blocking the status quo allocation or because they envy the net trade of other coalitions) then an alternative improvement can be obtained through a perturbation of the initial improvement.

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iona Heath ◽  
Anna Stavdal ◽  
Johann Agust Sigurdsson

As doctors, we see every working day the pervasive effects of different forms of structural violence and discrimination that undermine the hopes and aspirations of those on the losing side. This leads to powerlessness, fear and anger. Anger is not only forward facing but also directed toward, systems, institutions, governments—rather than individuals. At its best it is a protest against the status quo. We point out that leadership is one of the core values of our professionalism. In the light of what we see and hear, we have a responsibility to use the anger that this engenders within us to speak truth to power: this speaking is leadership. Our message is: feel the fear and the anger, use it to change the world, and enfold leadership in hope and the pursuit of justice.


Suicide in the forms of martyrdom, self-sacrifice, and self-immolation is mired in controversies regarding religious roots, nomenclature, motives, and valor. Although the admiration ebbs and flows, at least some idealization of such elective deaths is discernible in every religious tradition treated in this volume. Traditional support ranges from tales of ascetic heroes who conquer personal passions to save others by dying, to tales of righteous warriors who suffer and die valiantly while challenging the status quo. While the lionization of elective death is a persistent theme in world religions, just as persistent are disputes about the core notions that justify it, such as altruism, heroism, and religion itself. This volume offers critical analyses by renowned scholars with the literary and historical tools to tackle the contested issue of religiously sanctioned suicide. Three chapters treat contemporary phenomena with disputed classical roots (chapters on Salafist Jihadists, on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, and on the Branch Davidians and Heavens' Gate), while eleven focus on classical religious literatures which variously celebrate and disparage figures who invite self-harm to the point of corporeal death (chapters on Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Sikh, Tamil, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, and Daoist traditions, as well as on their diverse branches and special expressions). Overall, the volume offers astute scholarly insights which counter the axiom that religious traditions simply and always embrace life at any cost.


2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 161-171
Author(s):  
Iulia Bobăilă ◽  

Ecocritical Perspectives and Narrative Tensions in Belén Gopegui’s Snow White’s Father. The relationship between literature and ecology has come to the fore in the last few decades and has encompassed several dimensions approached within the evolving framework of ecocriticism. In this context, our purpose is twofold: to explore the possibilities of an ecocritical reading of Belén Gopegui’s novel Snow White’s Father and to highlight the way in which the characters’ uncomfortable questions, the fully-articulated answers and those still latent make up an intricate network of narrative tensions. At the core of the novel lies an all-pervading need of self-questioning and collective reassessment of values, interactions and ethical limits. Its characters are marked by doubt and hesitations regarding the reasons that make them strive for a change or defend the status quo they are fond of. Gopegui is able to perform a delicately-balanced walk on a tightrope between stern anti-capitalist principles and complex human motivations. Keywords: system, ideology, capitalism, ecocriticism, collective subject


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Walzer

The work organisation model of crowdwork almost paradigmatically stands for "work 4.0". Networking and digitalisation accelerate the already-existing tendency towards an "escape from the restrictions of German employment law", away from hierarchy and back to the market. The thesis addresses the disruptive dimension of this development and asks for adequate protection for crowdworkers. The protection of crowdworkers is examined on the basis of the leading German crowdwork platforms. As a first step, the thesis provides an overview of the fundamentals, as well as the factual and legal framework of crowdwork. Subsequently, it assesses the general terms and conditions of the platforms examined on the basis of general civil and commercial law. The core elements of the thesis are the analysis of the status quo of employment law protection de lege lata, as well as the examination whether and to what extent the legal protection for this form of employment can and must be extended de lege ferenda.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 621-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Preiss

While libertarians (by most accounts) affirm personal responsibility as a central moral and political value, libertarian theorists write relatively little about the theory and practice of this value. Focusing on the work of F. A. Hayek and David Schmidtz, this article identifies the core of a libertarian approach to personal responsibility and demonstrates the ways in which this approach entails a radical revision of the ethics and American politics of personal responsibility. Then, I highlight several central implications of this analysis in the American political and economic status quo. First, this analysis makes a mockery of so-called libertarian/conservative ‘fusionism’, such that libertarian personal responsibility cannot partner with meritocratic conservative thought to provide a plural grounding for rejecting progressive or redistributive economic policy. Next, preferred libertarian policies threaten the status, esteem and social bases of self-respect of citizens who are worse-off through little or no fault of their own. Finally, these policies undermine the ethics of personal responsibility that Americans from across the ideological spectrum value and many conservatives and libertarians celebrate. In the American status quo, those who value personal responsibility must reserve a central place for policies that mitigate opportunity and distributive inequalities.


2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Wohlforth

Most scholars hold that the consequences of unipolarity for great power conflict are indeterminate and that a power shift resulting in a return to bipolarity or multipolarity will not raise the specter of great power war. This article calls into question the core assumptions underlying the consensus: (1) that people are mainly motivated by the instrumental pursuit of tangible ends such as physical security and material prosperity and (2) that major powers' satisfaction with the status quo is relatively independent of the distribution of capabilities. in fact, it is known that people are motivated powerfully by a noninstrumental concern for relative status, and there is strong empirical evidence linking the salience of those concerns to distributions of resources. If the status of states depends in some measure on their relative capabilities and if states derive utility from status, then different distributions of capabilities may affect levels of satisfaction, just as different income distributions may affect levels of status competition in domestic settings. Building on research in psychology and sociology, the author argues that even capabilities distributions among major powers foster ambiguous status hierarchies, which generate more dissatisfaction and clashes over the status quo. and the more stratified the distribution of capabilities, the less likely such status competition is. Unipolarity thus augurs for great power peace, and a shift back to bipolarity or multipolarity raises the probability of war even among great powers with little material cause to fight.


Public Choice ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. Laing ◽  
Sampei Nakabayashi ◽  
Benjamin Slotznick

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-70
Author(s):  
David C. Wilson

AbstractThis essay posits that justice is the core value epitomizing our moment. Justice is violated when positive outcomes are undeserved, and the felt sense of injustice motivates a need for retribution. Because politics involves allocation (distribution and redistribution), deservingness is a core appraisal of “who gets what” and therefore justice is fundamental for politics. This is especially germane to race, ethnicity, and politics scholars. I present a few core tenets of justice theory, and argue that political science can take advantage of the moment to engage the concept of justice; especially as it relates to the study of racial attitudes and the identification of racial enablers—those ostensible non-racists who facilitate the status quo. Summarily, I propose that justice can unify debates over prejudice and politics, and advance our scholarly understanding of how well-intentioned people—regardless of their identities, or ideological or partisan labels—can facilitate racism, racial inequality, and injustice.


1961 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rogers ◽  
Ivar Berg

Political theorists since Aristotle have viewed the middle classes as a source of social stability. In recent times some writers have pointed to a decline in the opportunities for small businessmen, one of the core groups of the old middle classes. The argument has been that as opportunities decline, the tendency of small businessmen is to harbor fundamentalist wishes to return to a less complicated economic system and to experience a disenchantment with democratic institutions. In this paper we review and criticize several approaches to the study of the consequences of changes in the opportunities for small businessmen. We reconceptualize opportunity in such a way that satisfactions in some areas of the work experience of entrepreneurs are seen as compensating for dissatisfactions in others. The result is that some small businessmen accommodate to the status quo. Selected results of a preliminary study are reported. We then suggest some of the implications of this accommodation for the functioning of a democratic society.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Jessica Hastenteufel ◽  
Sabrina Kiszka

Banks and financial service providers are currently facing numerous challenges due to the ongoing cheap money policy of the European Central Bank, an increasingly regulated market environment and a rapidly progressive digitization. The ongoing decline in interest income and the stagnating of a banks commission income are currently leading to a reduction of a banks total income. In addition, there is digitization that brings numerous new competitors into the market and changes the core business models of banks. As a result, the general conditions in the financial sector change fundamentally and continue to do so in the near future. Moreover, the behaviour and expectations of bank customers have changed in a way that factors such as “convenience”, “flexibility” and “speed” have become increasingly important for them. For this reason, we will start with a theoretical overview of the status quo and the current challenges banks are facing and then present the results of our customer survey to highlight the current expectations of bank customers. Based on this, we formulate recommendations for banks on how to meet their customers’ expectations.


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