Vassar College Digital Library

Vassar Scholarship

Vassar Scholarship, the institutional repository formerly known as Digital Window, reflects the research and scholarly output of the Vassar College community.  It provides access to a variety of collections, including senior theses and projects across a wide range of disciplines.

Bargaining in the shadow of precedent: the surprising irrelevance of asymmetric stakes

Publication Date
2006-April-12
Document Type
Department or Program
Document Type
Abstract

We develop a model of bargaining and litigation in the context of patent licensing (or any contractual setting). Following Priest and Klein (1984) we developed a model that explicitly allows for (1) multiple parties (leading to asymmetry of stakes), (2)...

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Credibility and credulity: how beliefs about beliefs affect entry incentives

Publication Date
2006-November-13
Document Type
Department or Program
Document Type
Abstract

In this note we investigate the infringement (entry) decision for a firm facing an incumbent patent holder with uncertain patent rights. The entrant risks a dispute by entering, resulting in either a settlement (licensing) or litigation and trial. Using the...

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Do fringe benefits cause layoffs?

Publication Date
1990-October-01
Document Type
Department or Program
Document Type
Abstract

It is commonly believed that firms prefer layoffs to worksharing, in part, because layoffs economize on fringe benefit costs. We find that when labor markets are characterized by optimal implicit contracts, layoffs will never occur in equilibrium, regardless of the...

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How budget deficits cause trade deficits: The simple analytics

Publication Date
1989-November-01
Document Type
Department or Program
Document Type
Abstract

The traditional classroom presentation of international macroeconomic issues obscures the link between budget deficits, exchange rates, and the trade deficit. The article offers a simple supply and demand framework to clarify the role of budget deficits in creating trade deficits...

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Miss Samoa: Navigating Gender, Politics, and Culture in the National Pageant

Publication Date
2014-January-01
Document Type
Department or Program
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Access Level
Abstract

As a national pageant, Miss Samoa operates as a performative space where notions of gender, politics, and culture are negotiated and transformed. In this thesis, I examine how these concepts operate on an individual, local, and transnational level. Plus, the...

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Optimal implicit contracts and the choice between layoffs and work sharing

Publication Date
1989-October-01
Document Type
Department or Program
Document Type
Abstract

Implicit contract models of labor market equilibrium under work sharing and layoffs are constructed to examine several common explanations for the observed market bias in favor of layoffs. We first establish the optimality of work sharing in the absence of...

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Stabilizing the international financial system and financing development: an analysis of the Tobin tax

Publication Date
2007-December-01
Document Type
Authors
Department or Program
Document Type
Abstract

This paper analyzes the feasibility of an international tax on currency transaction, also known as "Tobin Tax", from an economic and juridical point of view. The claim that such a tax would curb short term speculators, thus stabilizing the foreign...

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Stabilizing the international financial system and financing development: an analysis of the Tobin tax

Publication Date
2007-December-01
Document Type
Authors
Department or Program
Document Type
Abstract

This paper analyzes the feasibility of an international tax on currency transaction, also known as "Tobin Tax", from an economic and juridical point of view. The claim that such a tax would curb short term speculators, thus stabilizing the foreign...

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Suffering in silence: the politics of shaping cultural memory in the context of narratives around Korean "comfort women" in South Korea

Publication Date
2016-January-01
Document Type
Authors
Department or Program
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Access Level
Abstract

In <em>Tangled Memories</em>: <em>The Vietnam War, the Aids Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering, </em>Marita Sturken discusses the shaping of cultural memory in the U.S. in the context of the Vietnam War and the AIDS epidemic. She writes that...

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