Many studies specify human mortality patterns parametrically, with a parameter change affecting mortality rates at different ages simultaneously. Motivated by the stylized fact that a mortality decline affects primarily younger people in the early phase of mortality transition but mainly older...

We examine how far fertility trends respond to family policies in OECD countries. In the light of the recent fertility rebound observed in several OECD countries, we empirically test the impact of different family policy settings on fertility, using data from 18 OECD countries that spans the...

Simple games are a powerful tool to analyze decision - making and coalition formation in social and political life. In this paper, we present relation-algebraic models of simple games and develop relational specifications for solving some basic problems of them. In particular, we test certain...

Stochastic dominance has typically been used with a special emphasis on risk and inequality reduction something captured by the concavity of the utility function in the expected utility model. We claim that the applicability of the stochastic dominance approach goes far beyond risk and...

The paper assesses the implementation of income contingent loan schemes for higher education (ICL) in an institutional context characterized by two main features: (i) a former tuition free system and (ii) a great heterogeneity in tertiary education's diplomas quality and cost, which impacts the...

We study and compare two frameworks: a model of influence, and command games. In the influence model, in which players are to make a certain acceptance/rejection decision, due to influence of other players, the decision of a player may be different from his inclination. We study a relation...

Finding a solution concept is one of the central problems in cooperative game theory, and the notion of core is the most popular solution concept since it is based on some rationality condition. In many real situations, not all possible coalitions can form, so that classical TU-games cannot be...

Almost all models of the (New) Economic Geography have focused on interregional transportation costs to understand industrial location, considering regions as dots without intraregional transportation costs. We introduce a distinction between interregional and intraregional transportation costs....

The field of social psychology explores how a person behaves within the context of other people. The social context can play a substantive role in non-market allocation decisions given peoples choices and values extend beyond the classic market-based exchange institution. Herein we explore how...

A well-known model in sociology and marketing is that of opinion leadership. Opinion leaders are actors who are able to affect the behavior of their followers. Hence, opinion leaders have some power over their followers, and they can exercise this power by influencing their followers choice of...