J. Atsu Amegashie

 
 

Department of Economics
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario
Canada N1G 2W1
 
E-mail: jamegash at uoguelph dot ca

Full CV

Summary of my research

Education

  • Ph.D (Economics), Simon Fraser University, Canada, 2002.
  • MDE, Dalhousie University, Canada, 1998.
  • M.A. (Economics), Queen's University, Canada, 1995.
  • Diploma (Economics), London School of Economics, UK, 1994.
  • B.A. (Economics/Statistics, with First Class Honors), University of Ghana, Ghana, 1991.

    • Positions

  • Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Guelph, July 2006 -
  • Research Fellow, CESifo, Munich, Germany, July 2006 -
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Guelph, August 2002 - June 2006
  • Lecturer, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, May 2001 - August 2002.
  • Researcher, Center for Excellence, Vancouver, Canada, June 2000 - June 2001.

    • Visiting Positions

  • Visiting Scholar, CES, University of Munich, Germany, June 2006
  • Visiting Scholar, CSAE, Oxford University, UK, May 2006

    • Research Interests

    All-pay auctions and contests, Behavioral Economics, Development Economics, Public Economics.

    Books

    “Web-based study guide” to accompany 5th edition of “Microeconomics” by Curtis Eaton, Diane Eaton, and Douglas Allen (Prentice Hall, Canada). Available at http://vig.prenhall.com:8081/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0130617512,00.html

    Journal Articles

  • The Paradox of Revenge in Conflicts (with Marco Runkel), Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming. See differential-game version here.

  • Incomplete Property Rights and Over-Investment., Social Choice and Welfare, Vol. 37, June 2011: 81-95.

  • On Third-Party Intervention in Conflicts: An Economist's View, Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, Vol. 16: Iss. 2, 2010, Article 11.

  • American Idol: Should it be a Singing Contest or a Popularity Contest? Journal of Cultural Economics, Vol 33, November 2009: 265-277.

  • Self-selection, optimal income taxation, and redistribution, Journal of Economic Education, Vol 40, Winter 2009: 55-67.

  • Intentions, Guilt, and Social Interactions. Minnesota Journal of Law, Science, and Technology (Univ. of Minnesota Law School), Vol 9: April 2008: 861-882. longer version

  • Incomplete property rights, redistribution, and welfare, Social Choice and Welfare, Vol 30, May 2008: 685-699
    • .

  • (Non)intervention in intra-state conflicts (with Ed Kutsoati)
    • , European Journal of Political Economy, Vol 23, September 2007: 754-767. Appendices of proofs.

  • Competitive burnout: theory and experimental evidence (with Bram Cadsby and Yang Song), Games and Economic Behavior, Vol 59, May 2007: 213-239 (Lead Article).
    • Longer version with proofs, Cognitive Hierarchy solution using normalized Poisson beliefs

  • Sabotaging Potential Rivals (with Marco Runkel), Social Choice and Welfare, Vol 28, January 2007: 143-162
    • .

  • The 2002 Winter Olympics Scandal, Social Choice and Welfare, Vol 26, Jan. 2006: 183-189. Reprinted in Forty Years of Rent-Seeking Research, Volume 2, R. Congleton, A. Hillman, and K.A. Konrad (eds), Springer-Verlag, 2008.

  • A contest success function with a tractable noise parameter, Public Choice, Vol 126, Jan. 2006: 135-144.

  • Rematches in boxing and other sporting events (with Ed Kutsoati), Journal of Sports Economics, Vol 6, Nov. 2005: 401-411

  • A political economy model of immigration quotas, Economics of Governance, Vol 5, Nov. 2004: 255-267.

  • The all-pay auction when a committee awards the prize. Public Choice, Vol 116, July 2003: 79-90.

  • Trade liberalization and labor unions (with Toru Kikuchi).Open Economies Review, Vol 13, Jan. 2003: 5-9 (Lead Article).

  • Committees and rent-seeking effort under probabilistic voting. Public Choice, Vol 112, October 2002: 345-350.

  • An all-pay auction with a pure-strategy equilibrium. Economics Letters, Vol 70, January 2001: 79-82.

  • Some results on rent-seeking contests with shortlisting. Public Choice, Vol. 105, Dec. 2000: 245-253.

  • The design of rent-seeking competitions: committees, preliminary and final contests. Public Choice, Vol. 99, April 1999: 63-76. Corrigendum

  • The number of rent-seekers and aggregate rent-seeking expenditures: an unpleasant result. Public Choice, Vol. 99, April 1999: 57-62.

  • How unpleasant a result? A reply to Derek J. Clark. Public Choice, Vol. 102, March 2000: 369-372. See Professor Clark's comment.

    • Other publications

  • The Economics of Subsidies, Crossroads, Vol 6, 2006: 7-15; and African Agenda, Vol 8, no.3, 2005.

    • Submitted papers

  • The Power of the Military and Surplus Extraction in Non-Democracies.
  • Productive versus Destructive Efforts in Contests.
  • Culture of Silence: Corruption when Customers' Reports are Strategic Substitutes
  • Asymmetric Information and Third-Party Intervention in Civil Wars
  • An Empirical Inquiry into the Nature of Welfarism. (with B. Ouattarra)
  • Moral Hazard and the Composition of Transfers: Theory and Evidence (with B. Ouattarra and E. Strobl).

    • Work in progress

    THINKING

    Other Papers

  • On the relationship between average cost and efficiency
  • Self-selection in competing all-pay auctions (with Ximing Wu).
  • A Positive Theory of Immutable Characteristics and Discrimination.
  • Economics, Gratitude, and Warm-Glow.
  • Burning out in sequential elimination contests.
  • Terror alerts and beliefs about terrorism (with Ed Kutsoati)
  • Misery loves company: social influence and the supply/pricing decision of popular night clubs.
  • Negative externalities and the private provision of public goods: a survey.
  • Asymmetry and collusion in infinitely repeated contests.
  • Mortgages . (Pedagogy)

    • Nontechnical Papers

  • Leadership, information, and Poverty Traps: Rationalizing Social Equilibria
  • To reduce poverty, let's measure it properly
  • A Remark on Nozick's Libertarianism
  • There are no bills left on the sidewalk?
  • Why the 'right' institutions might fail
  • What is Exploitation?

    • Referee Reports (Journals)

  • American Economic Review, B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Canadian Journal of Economics, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Economica, Economic Inquiry, Economics of Governance, Economics and Politics, Economic Theory, European Economic Review, European Journal of Political Economy, Games and Economic Behavior, Ghana Policy Journal, International Economic Review, International Journal of Game Theory, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, Journal of Population Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Public Economic Theory, Journal of Regional Science, Journal of Sports Economics, Management Science, Public Choice, Review of Economic Studies, Social Choice and Welfare, Southern Economic Journal, Theory and Decision.

    Referee Reports (Granting Councils and others)

  • Israel Science Foundation
  • Carleton University
  • United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation
  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

    Conferences and Invited Seminars

  • Invited Paper: Asymmetric Information and Third-Party Intervention in Civil Wars, University of Magdeburg, Germany (2010).
  • Presenter: CESifo Area Conference on Employment and Social Protection, Germany (2010)
  • Invited Paper: Association for Law, Property and Society, Annual Meeting, Georgetown Law School, Washington, DC, USA (2010).
  • Presenter: CESifo Area Conference on Employment and Social Protection, Germany (2009)
  • Invited Paper: Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden (2008)
  • Presenter: Canadian Economic Association Meetings (2008)
  • Presenter: CESifo Area Conference on Employment and Social Protection, Germany (2008)
  • The Paradoxes of Revenge in Conflicts, Defence and Security Economics Workshop, Royal Military College, November 2008
  • The Paradoxes of Revenge in Conflicts, Brock University, September 2008
  • The Paradoxes of Revenge in Conflicts, Stockholm School of Economics, June 2008
  • The Paradoxes of Revenge in Conflicts, Canadian Economics Association Meetings, Vancouver, June 2008
  • The Paradoxes of Revenge in Conflicts, CESifo Area Conference on Employment and Social Protection, Munich, May 2008
  • Moral Hazard and the Composition of Transfers: Theory with an Application to Foreign Aid, Public Economics Workshop, Queen's University, November 2007
  • Discussant, Defence and Security Economics Workshop, Royal Military College, November 2007
  • Moral Hazard and the Composition of Transfers: Theory with an Application to Foreign Aid, York University, October 2007
  • Intentions, Insincerity, and Prosocial Behavior. Canadian Economics Association Meetings, Halifax, June 2007
  • Intentions, Insincerity, and Prosocial Behavior. CESifo Area Conference on Employment and Social Protection, Munich, May 2007
  • Intentions, Guilt, and Social Interactions. Symposium on Trust, Self, Empathy and Cognition, University of Minnesota Law School, April 2007
  • Discussant, American Economic Association meetings, Chicago, January 2007
  • Guilt aversion and insincerity-induced disutility, Dalhousie University, November 2006
  • Guilt aversion and insincerity-induced disutility, Ryerson University, October 2006
  • (Non)intervention in intra-state conflicts, Oxford University, May 2006
    • .
  • Sabotaging Potential Rivals. Public Choice Society meetings, New Orleans, March 2005.
  • (Non)intervention in intra-state conflicts. Royal Military College and Queen's University, February 200).
  • Sabotaging Potential Rivals. University of Waterloo (November 2004).
  • Burning out in sequential-elimination contests. European Economic Association Meetings, Madrid, Spain, August 2004.
  • Burning out in sequential-elimination contests. Wilfrid Laurier University, November 2003.
  • Burning out in sequential-elimination contests. The 7th CEMAPRE Conference on Mathematics Applied to Economics and Management, University of Lisbon, Portugal, September 2003.
  • A political Economy model of immigration quotas. Southern Economic Association meetings, San Antonio,Texas, November 2003.
  • Discussant, CEA meetings, Carleton University, Summer 2003.
  • Discussant, Canadian Public Economics Study Group, University of Ottawa, Summer 2003.
  • Constructing burning-out equilibria in sequential-elimination contests. Simon Fraser University, May 2003.
  • A theory of bargaining deals: quantity bonus as an example. University of Toronto, April 15, 2003.
  • Price bargaining and quantity bonus in developing economies. Royal Economic Society Conference, University of Warwick (UK), April 2003.
  • Sequential Elimination All-Pay Auctions. Presented at the following universities: Acadia, Carleton, Guelph, and Lethbridge
    • .
  • Invited discussant, WZB/CEPR conference on "Contests in Politics and Industrial Organization", Berlin, Germany, Nov. 30 - Dec. 1, 2001.
  • A political economy model of immigration quotas. Paper presented at the 2001 meetings of the Canadian Public Economics Study Group in Montreal, Canada (June 4, 2001).
  • The efficiency implications of shortlisting in economic contests. Presented at the annual meetings of the Canadian Economics Association, University of Ottawa, Canada, May 31, 1998.
  • Testing for congruence in the development objectives of a recipient NGO and a donor: the case of Coady/CIDA. Presented at the conference on Communities and Development, Dalhousie University, Canada, March 28, 1998.
  • The welfare economics of bribery. Presented at the Economics Division, International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada, Feb. 12, 1996.

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