William A Brock
Biographic Data
| ID | 631810 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William A Brock |
| GIVEN NAMES | William A |
| FAMILY NAME | Brock |
| SIGNATURE | BROCK W A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 49 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Importance of Small Decisions
How people make decisions in an era of too much information and fake news. Humans originally evolved in a world of few choices. Prehistoric, preindustrial, and predigital eras required fewer decisions than today's all-access, always-on world of too much information. Economists have largely discarded the idea that agents act rationally and the market follows suit. It seems that no matter how small or innocuous a decision might seem, there's almost…
Validating niche-construction theory through path analysis
Linear Social Interactions Models
This paper provides a systematic analysis of identification in linear social interactions models. This is a theoretical and econometric exercise as the analysis is linked to a rigorously delineated model of interdependent decisions. We develop an incomplete information game for individual choice under social influences that nests standard models as special cases. We consider identification of both endogenous and contextual social effects under al…
The Green Solow model
Early-warning signals for critical transitions
Adaptive Capacity and Traps
Adaptive capacity is the ability of a living system, such as a social-ecological system, to adjust responses to changing internal demands and external drivers. Although adaptive capacity is a frequent topic of study in the resilience literature, there are few formal models. This paper introduces such a model and uses it to explore adaptive capacity by contrast with the opposite condition, or traps. In a socialecological rigidity trap, strong self…
Profiling Problems with Partially Identified Structure
This article studies two classes of profiling problems where the relevant structural inputs to the problems may be only partially identified: that where profilees are not 'strategic' in altering their characteristics and that where profilees strategically alter their characteristics at a cost. The analysis is unified by assuming there is a utilitarian planner that attempts to optimise the sum of welfare. We compare maximin solutions and minimax-r…
Variance as a Leading Indicator of Regime Shift in Ecosystem Services
Many environmental conflicts involve pollutants such as greenhouse gas emissions that are dispersed through space and cause losses of ecosystem services. As pollutant emissions rise in one place, a spatial cascade of declining ecosystem services can spread across a larger landscape because of the dispersion of the pollutant. This paper considers the problem of anticipating such spatial regime shifts by monitoring time series of the pollutant or a…
Uncertainty in Discount Models and Environmental Accounting
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is controversial for environmental issues, but is nevertheless employed by many governments and private organizations for making environmental decisions. Controversy centers on the practice of economic discounting in CBA for decisions that have substantial long-term consequences, as do most environmental decisions. Customarily, economic discounting has been calculated at a constant exponential rate, a practice that wei…
Spatial Complexity, Resilience, and Policy Diversity
The dynamics of and policies governing spatially coupled social-ecological mosaics are considered for the case of fisheries in a lake district. A microeconomic model of households addresses agent decisions at three hierarchic levels: (1) selection of the lake district from among a larger set of alternative places to live or visit, (2) selection of a base location within the lake district, and (3) selection of a portfolio of ecosystem services to …
What have we learned from a decade of empirical research on growth? Growth Empirics and Reality
This article questions current empirical practice in the study of growth. It argues that much of the modern empirical growth literature is based on assumptions about regressors, residuals, and parameters that are implausible from the perspective of both economic theory and the historical experiences of the countries under study. Many of these problems, it argues, are forms of violations of an exchangeability assumption that implicitly underlies s…
Discrete Choice with Social Interactions
This paper provides an analysis of aggregate behavioural outcomes when individual utility exhibits social interaction effects. We study generalized logistic models of individual choice which incorporate terms reflecting the desire of individuals to conform to the behaviour of others in an environment of noncooperative decisionmaking. Laws of large numbers are generated in such environments. Multiplicity of equilibria in these models, which are eq…
A Dynamic Structural Model for Stock Return Volatility and Trading Volume
This paper seeks to develop a structural model that lets data on asset returns and trading volume speak to whether volatility autocorrelation comes from the fundamental that the trading process is pricing or, is caused by the trading process itself. Returns and volume data argue, in the context of our model, that persistent volatility is caused by traders experimenting with different beliefs based upon past profit experience and their estimates o…
Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos and Instability
Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Instability
Journal Article Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Instability: Statistical Theory and Economic Evidence Get access Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Instability: Statistical Theory and Economic Evidence. By (William A.) BRock, (DAVID A.) Hsieh and Lebaron (Blake ). (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1991. Pp. xiv + 328. £29.95 hardback. ISBN 0 262 02329 6.) Seth A. Greenblatt Seth A. Greenblatt University of Reading Search for other works by this…
Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory
Journal Article Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory: Political Economy in General Equilibrium Get access Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory: Political Economy in General Equilibrium. By P. MAGEE STEPHEN, A. BROCK WILLIAM and LESLIE YOUNG. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989, Pp. x x+ 438. £30.00 hardback, £12.95 paperback, US S49.50 hardback, US $18.95 paperback. ISBN 0 521 36247 4, 0 521 37700 5). D…
Small business economics
Contestable Markets and the Theory of Industry Structure
Adaptive Capacity and Traps
Adaptive capacity is the ability of a living system, such as a social-ecological system, to adjust responses to changing internal demands and external drivers. Although adaptive capacity is a frequent topic of study in the resilience literature, there are few formal models. This paper introduces such a model and uses it to explore adaptive capacity by contrast with the opposite condition, or traps. In a socialecological rigidity trap, strong self…
Linear Social Interactions Models
This paper provides a systematic analysis of identification in linear social interactions models. This is a theoretical and econometric exercise as the analysis is linked to a rigorously delineated model of interdependent decisions. We develop an incomplete information game for individual choice under social influences that nests standard models as special cases. We consider identification of both endogenous and contextual social effects under al…
Validating niche-construction theory through path analysis
Spatial Complexity, Resilience, and Policy Diversity
The dynamics of and policies governing spatially coupled social-ecological mosaics are considered for the case of fisheries in a lake district. A microeconomic model of households addresses agent decisions at three hierarchic levels: (1) selection of the lake district from among a larger set of alternative places to live or visit, (2) selection of a base location within the lake district, and (3) selection of a portfolio of ecosystem services to …
Profiling Problems with Partially Identified Structure
This article studies two classes of profiling problems where the relevant structural inputs to the problems may be only partially identified: that where profilees are not 'strategic' in altering their characteristics and that where profilees strategically alter their characteristics at a cost. The analysis is unified by assuming there is a utilitarian planner that attempts to optimise the sum of welfare. We compare maximin solutions and minimax-r…
Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Instability
Journal Article Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Instability: Statistical Theory and Economic Evidence Get access Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Instability: Statistical Theory and Economic Evidence. By (William A.) BRock, (DAVID A.) Hsieh and Lebaron (Blake ). (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1991. Pp. xiv + 328. £29.95 hardback. ISBN 0 262 02329 6.) Seth A. Greenblatt Seth A. Greenblatt University of Reading Search for other works by this…
Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory
Journal Article Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory: Political Economy in General Equilibrium Get access Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory: Political Economy in General Equilibrium. By P. MAGEE STEPHEN, A. BROCK WILLIAM and LESLIE YOUNG. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989, Pp. x x+ 438. £30.00 hardback, £12.95 paperback, US S49.50 hardback, US $18.95 paperback. ISBN 0 521 36247 4, 0 521 37700 5). D…
Contestable Markets and the Theory of Industry Structure
Small business economics
Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory
Journal Article Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory: Political Economy in General Equilibrium Get access Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory: Political Economy in General Equilibrium. By P. MAGEE STEPHEN, A. BROCK WILLIAM and LESLIE YOUNG. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989, Pp. x x+ 438. £30.00 hardback, £12.95 paperback, US S49.50 hardback, US $18.95 paperback. ISBN 0 521 36247 4, 0 521 37700 5). D…
Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Instability
Journal Article Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Instability: Statistical Theory and Economic Evidence Get access Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos, and Instability: Statistical Theory and Economic Evidence. By (William A.) BRock, (DAVID A.) Hsieh and Lebaron (Blake ). (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1991. Pp. xiv + 328. £29.95 hardback. ISBN 0 262 02329 6.) Seth A. Greenblatt Seth A. Greenblatt University of Reading Search for other works by this…
Nonlinear Dynamics, Chaos and Instability
A Dynamic Structural Model for Stock Return Volatility and Trading Volume
This paper seeks to develop a structural model that lets data on asset returns and trading volume speak to whether volatility autocorrelation comes from the fundamental that the trading process is pricing or, is caused by the trading process itself. Returns and volume data argue, in the context of our model, that persistent volatility is caused by traders experimenting with different beliefs based upon past profit experience and their estimates o…
What have we learned from a decade of empirical research on growth? Growth Empirics and Reality
This article questions current empirical practice in the study of growth. It argues that much of the modern empirical growth literature is based on assumptions about regressors, residuals, and parameters that are implausible from the perspective of both economic theory and the historical experiences of the countries under study. Many of these problems, it argues, are forms of violations of an exchangeability assumption that implicitly underlies s…
Discrete Choice with Social Interactions
This paper provides an analysis of aggregate behavioural outcomes when individual utility exhibits social interaction effects. We study generalized logistic models of individual choice which incorporate terms reflecting the desire of individuals to conform to the behaviour of others in an environment of noncooperative decisionmaking. Laws of large numbers are generated in such environments. Multiplicity of equilibria in these models, which are eq…
Spatial Complexity, Resilience, and Policy Diversity
The dynamics of and policies governing spatially coupled social-ecological mosaics are considered for the case of fisheries in a lake district. A microeconomic model of households addresses agent decisions at three hierarchic levels: (1) selection of the lake district from among a larger set of alternative places to live or visit, (2) selection of a base location within the lake district, and (3) selection of a portfolio of ecosystem services to …
Uncertainty in Discount Models and Environmental Accounting
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is controversial for environmental issues, but is nevertheless employed by many governments and private organizations for making environmental decisions. Controversy centers on the practice of economic discounting in CBA for decisions that have substantial long-term consequences, as do most environmental decisions. Customarily, economic discounting has been calculated at a constant exponential rate, a practice that wei…
Profiling Problems with Partially Identified Structure
This article studies two classes of profiling problems where the relevant structural inputs to the problems may be only partially identified: that where profilees are not 'strategic' in altering their characteristics and that where profilees strategically alter their characteristics at a cost. The analysis is unified by assuming there is a utilitarian planner that attempts to optimise the sum of welfare. We compare maximin solutions and minimax-r…
Variance as a Leading Indicator of Regime Shift in Ecosystem Services
Many environmental conflicts involve pollutants such as greenhouse gas emissions that are dispersed through space and cause losses of ecosystem services. As pollutant emissions rise in one place, a spatial cascade of declining ecosystem services can spread across a larger landscape because of the dispersion of the pollutant. This paper considers the problem of anticipating such spatial regime shifts by monitoring time series of the pollutant or a…
Adaptive Capacity and Traps
Adaptive capacity is the ability of a living system, such as a social-ecological system, to adjust responses to changing internal demands and external drivers. Although adaptive capacity is a frequent topic of study in the resilience literature, there are few formal models. This paper introduces such a model and uses it to explore adaptive capacity by contrast with the opposite condition, or traps. In a socialecological rigidity trap, strong self…
Early-warning signals for critical transitions
The Green Solow model
Linear Social Interactions Models
This paper provides a systematic analysis of identification in linear social interactions models. This is a theoretical and econometric exercise as the analysis is linked to a rigorously delineated model of interdependent decisions. We develop an incomplete information game for individual choice under social influences that nests standard models as special cases. We consider identification of both endogenous and contextual social effects under al…
Validating niche-construction theory through path analysis
The Importance of Small Decisions
How people make decisions in an era of too much information and fake news. Humans originally evolved in a world of few choices. Prehistoric, preindustrial, and predigital eras required fewer decisions than today's all-access, always-on world of too much information. Economists have largely discarded the idea that agents act rationally and the market follows suit. It seems that no matter how small or innocuous a decision might seem, there's almost…
Economics (13 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Econometrics (6 works) · Mathematics (6 works) · Ecology (5 works) · Economic theories and models (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Biology (4 works) · Business (4 works) · Geography (4 works)