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Erskine Seminars is a pilot project of the School of Economics and Business at the University of Canterbury. Podcasts and webcasts of a limited number of seminars presented by Erskine visitors to the School are available for viewing on screen or to download.
 Jim Cox from Georgia State, ( Jim's home page) a visiting Erskine Fellow in the Economics Department this year ...and Maros' PhD supervisor!!... presented a stimulating seminar on theories of decision making under risk. The basic question Jim asks (and answers) is whether new and old theories of decision making under uncertain are plausible? Contemporary theories of decision making under risk, from Expected Utility theory to Prospect Theory, basically transform money payoffs or probabilities, or both, in some non linear way. When calibrated to rationalize patterns of observed choices on realistic but relatively small stakes gambles ALL of these theories are shown to have implausible implications for risk taking on larger domains of wealth. How is "implausibility" operationalized? Well..check out Jim's seminar for details !! A sneak preview: consider a 50/50 coin toss paying paying nothing or 1 million dollars . Where credibility isn't an issue...eg forget your average experimenter's budget and go to a roulette wheel at a commercial casino with a sufficient stock of of available wealth and reputation...so you do expect they will pay out ...would you really prefer $100 for sure to that 50/50 gamble? With a clever use of compound 50/50 gambles and restrictions implied by concavity and additively separable functionals Jim and his co-aithours show that plausible styles of risk aversion in small stakes gamble imply precisely this kind of implausible behaviour for large stakes. (here are the two papers underlying the talk Is There a Plausible Theory for Decision under Risk?, Risky Decisions in the Large and in the Small:Theory and Experiment )Enjoy
 This is the first of four lectures in Economic Theory given by Professor Gerard Debreu, who was visiting the University of Canterbury as a an Erskine Fellow in 1987. Thanks to Bert Brownlie these lectures were video taped and I only just recently digitized them. The topic of the first lecture is "preference and utility". It must be said to you of the power point generation that Professor Debreu makes chalk and blackboard technology look pretty darn good! here! . note: audio and "scrubbing" that work fine on the versions that are downloadeable -might be dodgy in the online viewer.
This is the second of four lectures in Economic Theory given by Professor Gerard Debreu, who was visiting the University of Canterbury as a an Erskine Fellow in 1987. editors note: audio and "scrubbing" that work fine on the versions that are downloadeable(downloadable file coming when i get back from the US nov 6JF) -might be dodgy in the online viewer.
This is the third of four lectures in Economic Theory given by Professor Gerard Debreu, who was visiting the University of Canterbury as a an Erskine Fellow in 1987. editors note: audio and "scrubbing" that work fine on the versions that are downloadeable -might be dodgy in the online viewer.
This is the fourth of four lectures in Economic Theory given by Professor Gerard Debreu, who was visiting the University of Canterbury as a an Erskine Fellow in 1987. note: audio and "scrubbing" that work fine on the versions that are downloadeable -might be dodgy in the online viewer.
 Who said economic history isn't interesting? Doug Allen blends theory and history to analyze and explain the duel of honour "a highly ritualized violent activity practiced (mostly) by aristocrats from about 1500 to 1900. The duel of honor was held in private, was attended by seconds and other members of society, was illegal, and
…more
Fine red wine is known by it's bottling date. So you're in for a real treat here listening to a 1995 seminar by Professor Ted Bergstrom
on evolutionary game theory. This is an introduction to the
evolutionary game theorist's way of thinking with the added flavour of
Ted's razor sharp wit.
 In late March this year (2007) I had the good fortune of getting to know Professor Mark Blaug, who was visiting our Department as an Erskine Visiting Fellow. Mark is the man who, at 80, we all want to be: still physically and intellectually active, curious, vibrant, ...alive. A real inspiration.This conversation will give you the opportunity to learn more about his life: From a 13 year old escaping with his brother from the Nazi's & separated from his parents who fled to Paris, Spain, and Portugal... before being reunited in 1942 in America, to his intellectual passions for Stalin Lenin and Marx (then respectable) as a teenager and graduate student, through the McCarthy era (he appeared before the McCarthy committee and also lost his job supporting a colleague who was fired for alleged communist activities) , growing disillusionment with socialism and communism, stumbling into the History of Economic Thought at Yale, and more..........truly a most interesting tale
This is a public lecture for non-economists,(and economists too!!  ) the 3rd annual Condliffe lecture. Visiting Erskine fellow Professor Mark Blaug addresses the question of congestion charges for congested roads. The subtitle of the lecture is: Traffic and the invisible hand of the market – why economists favour a pricing solution to road congestion. There are some interesting questions, and replies, towards the end of the lecture.Audio only podcast .
An excerpt from Mark's Introduction: "My purpose in this paper is to pin down the history of the two Fundamental Theorems of modern welfare economics and in so doing, to assess their continued relevance, if any. These are familiar ideas, which in some sense are the bread-and-butter of every intermediate and even elementary textbook in economics. But their philosophical foundations are actually somewhat shaky and economists are by no means agreed on their significance. A better appreciation of the history of these ideas may help to bring them more clearly into focus." Here are some other useful links:Full text of the talk is available here. Professor Blaug's home page
Interpreting a change in tax conditions as a natural experiment and using a rich data set from the Current Population Survey that straddles the time of treatment change, the paper aims to makes the following contribution to extant literature : - 1 the first to study this policy
- 2 Providing an integrated conceptual framework
- 3 Empirical study of labor supply effects
- 4 Multiple treatment groups
- 5 Unexplored sources of variation in benefits
- 6 Analysis includes women
- 7 Relevant for earnings test literature
Karen's home page
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