Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays


Book Description

All of the essays in this new collection by Thomas Schelling convey his unique perspective on individuals and society. Schelling, a 2005 Nobel Prize winner, has been one of the four or five most important social scientists of the past fifty years, and this collection shows why.




Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays


Book Description

All of the essays in this new collection by Thomas Schelling convey his unique perspective on individuals and society. Schelling, a 2005 Nobel Prize winner, has been one of the four or five most important social scientists of the past fifty years, and this collection shows why.




The Strategy of Conflict


Book Description

Analyzes the nature of international disagreements and conflict resolution in terms of game theory and non-zero-sum games.




Choice and Consequence


Book Description

Thomas Schelling is a political economist “conspicuous for wandering”—an errant economist. In Choice and Consequence, he ventures into the area where rationality is ambiguous in order to look at the tricks people use to try to quit smoking or lose weight. He explores topics as awesome as nuclear terrorism, as sordid as blackmail, as ineffable as daydreaming, as intimidating as euthanasia. He examines ethical issues wrapped up in economics, unwrapping the economics to disclose ethical issues that are misplaced or misidentified. With an ingenious, often startling approach, Schelling brings new perspectives to problems ranging from drug abuse, abortion, and the value people put on their lives to organized crime, airplane hijacking, and automobile safety. One chapter is a clear and elegant exposition of game theory as a framework for analyzing social problems. Another plays with the hypothesis that our minds are not only our problem-solving equipment but also the organ in which much of our consumption takes place. What binds together the different subjects is the author’s belief in the possibility of simultaneously being humane and analytical, of dealing with both the momentous and the familiar. Choice and Consequence was written for the curious, the puzzled, the worried, and all those who appreciate intellectual adventure.




The Forgotten Front


Book Description

After a decade and a half of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, US policymakers are seeking to provide aid and advice to local governments' counterinsurgency campaigns rather than directly intervening with US forces. This strategy, and US counterinsurgency doctrine in general, fail to recognize that despite a shared aim of defeating an insurgency, the US and its local partner frequently have differing priorities with respect to the conduct of counterinsurgency operations. Without some degree of reform or policy change on the part of the insurgency-plagued government, American support will have a limited impact. Using three detailed case studies - the Hukbalahap Rebellion in the Philippines, Vietnam during the rule of Ngo Dinh Diem, and the Salvadorian Civil War - Ladwig demonstrates that providing significant amounts of aid will not generate sufficient leverage to affect a client's behaviour and policies. Instead, he argues that influence flows from pressure and tight conditions on aid rather than from boundless generosity.




Lives of the Laureates, sixth edition


Book Description

Autobiographical accounts by Nobel laureates reflect the richness and diversity of contemporary economic thought and offer insights into the creative process. Lives of the Laureates offers readers an informal history of modern economic thought as told through autobiographical essays by twenty-three Nobel Prize laureates in Economics. The essays not only provide unique insights into major economic ideas of our time but also shed light on the processes of intellectual discovery and creativity. The accounts are accessible and engaging, achieving clarity without sacrificing inherently difficult content. This sixth edition adds four recent Nobelists to its pages: Eric Maskin, who illustrates his explanation of mechanism design with an example involving a mother, a cake, and two children; Joseph Stiglitz, who recounts his field's ideological wars linked to policy disputes; Paul Krugman, who describes the insights he gained from studying the model of the Capitol Hill Babysitting Coop (and the recession it suffered when more people wanted to accumulate babysitting coupons than redeem them); and Peter Diamond, who maps his development from student to teacher to policy analyst. Lives of the Laureates grows out of a continuing lecture series at Trinity University in San Antonio, which invites Nobelists from American universities to describe their evolution as economists in personal as well as technical terms. These lectures demonstrate the richness and diversity of contemporary economic thought. The reader will find that paths cross in unexpected ways—that disparate thinkers were often influenced by the same teachers—and that luck as well as hard work plays a role in the process of scientific discovery. The Laureates Lawrence R. Klein • Kenneth J. Arrow • Paul A. Samuelson • Milton Friedman • George J. Stigler • James Tobin • Franco Modigliani • James M. Buchanan • Robert M. Solow • William F. Sharpe • Douglass C. North • Myron S. Scholes • Gary S. Becker • Robert E. Lucas, Jr. • James J. Heckman • Vernon L. Smith • Edward C. Prescott • Thomas C. Schelling • Edmund S. Phelps • Eric S. Maskin • Joseph E. Stiglitz • Paul Krugman • Peter A. Diamond




Lives of the Laureates, seventh edition


Book Description

Autobiographical accounts by Nobel laureates reflect the richness and diversity of contemporary economic thought and offer insights into the creative process; with six new laureates. Lives of the Laureates offers readers an informal history of modern economic thought as told through autobiographical essays by thirty-two Nobel Prize laureates in economics. The essays not only provide unique insights into major economic ideas of our time but also shed light on the processes of intellectual discovery and creativity. The accounts are accessible and engaging, achieving clarity without sacrificing inherently difficult content. This seventh edition adds six Nobelists to its pages: Roger B. Myerson (co-recipient in 2007) describes his evolution as a game theorist and his application of game theory to issues that ranged from electoral systems to perverse incentives; Thomas J. Sargent (co-recipient in 2011), recounts the development of the rational expectations model, which fundamentally changed the policy implications for macroeconomic models; Amartya Sen (recipient in 1998) reflects on his use of a bicycle (later donated to the Nobel Museum) to collect data early in his career; A. Michael Spence (co-recipient in 2001) describes, among other things, his whiplash-inducing first foray into teaching an undergraduate class; Christopher A. Sims (co-recipient in 2011) discusses his “non-Nobel” research; and Alvin E. Roth (co-recipient in 2012) chronicles the “three insurrections” he has witnessed in mainstream economics. Lives of the Laureates grows out of a continuing lecture series at Trinity University in San Antonio, which invites Nobelists from American universities to describe their evolution as economists in personal as well as technical terms. The Laureates W. Arthur Lewis, Lawrence R. Klein, Kenneth J. Arrow, Paul A. Samuelson, Milton Friedman, George J. Stigler, James Tobin, Franco Modigliani, James M. Buchanan, Robert M. Solow, William F. Sharpe, Ronald H. Coase, Douglass C. North, John C. Harsanyi, Myron S. Scholes, Gary S. Becker, Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Vernon L. Smith, Clive W. J. Granger, Edward C. Prescott, Thomas C. Schelling, Edmund S. Phelps, Eric S. Maskin, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Peter A. Diamond, Roger B. Myerson, Thomas J. Sargent, Amartya Sen, A. Michael Spence, Christopher A. Sims, Alvin E. Roth




Lives of the Laureates, fifth edition


Book Description

Autobiographical accounts by twenty-three Nobel laureates give a picture of the richness of contemporary economic thought and insights into the creative process. Lives of the Laureates offers readers an informal history of modern economic thought as told through autobiographical essays by twenty-three winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics. The essays not only provide unique insights into major economic ideas of our time but also shed light on the processes of intellectual discovery and creativity. This fifth edition adds five recent Nobel laureates to its list of contributors: Vernon L. Smith (2002), Clive W. J. Granger (2003), Edward C. Prescott (2004), Thomas C. Schelling (2005) and Edmund S. Phelps (2006). Also included is the editors' revised afterword, “Lessons from the Laureates.” Lives of the Laureates grows out of a continuing lecture series at Trinity University in San Antonio, which invites Nobelists from American universities to describe their evolution as economists in personal as well as technical terms. Each laureate achieves the goal of clarity without sacrificing inherently difficult content: Kenneth Arrow makes grasping the essentials of his “impossibility theorem” painless; Lawrence Klein clearly presents what goes into econometric “model building”; George Stigler masterfully describes his “information theory”; and so on. These lectures demonstrate the richness and diversity of contemporary economic thought. The reader will find that paths cross in unexpected ways—that disparate thinkers were often influenced by the same teachers—and that luck as well as hard work plays a role in the process of scientific discovery.




India, Climate Change, and The Global Commons


Book Description

This book explores the genesis of the concept of global commons against the backdrop of the global environmental problems of climate change, biodiversity conservation, desertification, and the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes. It highlights blockchains and cryptocurrencies, and their role in transforming global institutions. It delves on the advent of COVID-19 as a global common and the way the pandemic has been handled by the world community. The book also explores the way the current geopolitics of the world is contributing to the resolution of the conservation problem associated with global commons.




In the Shadow of International Law


Book Description

Secrecy is a staple of world politics and a pervasive feature of political life. Leaders keep secrets as they conduct sensitive diplomatic missions, convince reluctant publics to throw their support behind costly wars, and collect sensitive intelligence about sworn enemies. In the Shadow of International Law explores one of the most controversial forms of secret statecraft: the use of covert action to change or overthrow foreign regimes. Drawing from a broad range of cases of US-backed regime change during the Cold War, Michael Poznansky develops a legal theory of covert action to explain why leaders sometimes turn to covert action when conducting regime change, rather than using force to accomplish the same objective. He highlights the surprising role international law plays in these decisions and finds that once the nonintervention principle-which proscribes unwanted violations of another state's sovereignty-was codified in international law in the mid-twentieth century, states became more reluctant to pursue overt regime change without proper cause. Further, absent a legal exemption to nonintervention such as a credible self-defense claim or authorization from an international body, states were more likely to pursue regime change covertly and concealing brazen violations of international law. Shining a light on the secret underpinnings of the liberal international order, the conduct of foreign-imposed regime change, and the impact of international law on state behavior, Poznansky speaks to the potential consequences of America abandoning its role as the steward of the postwar order, as well as the promise and peril of promoting new rules and norms in cyberspace.