Forum
What is DR@W Forum?
DR@W Forum is an interdisciplinary discussion series which focuses on theoretical and empirical research about decision making.
The usual structure of the forum is a 30 - 45 minute introduction of the topic/working paper, with ample additional time for discussion.
The audience prefers discussing work-in-progress topics as opposed to finished papers. We meet on Thursdays between 2:30 and 3:45pm during term time, with streaming via Zoom. Contact John Taylor (John.Taylor[at]wbs.ac.uk) if you would like to suggest a speaker for a future event. Notifications of upcoming DR@W Forum events along with other decision research related activities can be obtained by registering with the moderated Behaviour Spotlight email listLink opens in a new window.
Note that several talks during the 2024/25 academic year are being hosted and organised by the Economics department. This is indicated in the calendar entries. These talks will all take place in the Social Studies building. If you require further details regarding these sessions, please contact Matthew Ridley (Matthew.Ridley[at]糖心TV.ac.uk) in the Economics department.
DR@W Forum: Marc Kaufmann (CEU)
A First Welfare Theorem with Fully Socially Responsible Agents and its Limitations (with Botond Koszegi of University of Bonn)
In a competitive economy with externality-generating goods, we show an extension of the First Welfare Theorem: if consumers *and* producers are fully socially responsible, the competitive equilibrium achieves the first best. The key insight is that in competitive markets the impact of buying a good and the impact of producing it sum to one — so while one side may correctly invoke replacement logic (if I don't, someone else will), this necessarily means the other side cannot. The result relies on three assumptions, each stronger than what the classical FWT requires: (i) homogeneous and full social concern across agents; (ii) agents know the true impact of their actions; (iii) agents believe markets clear in response to their deviations. The result highlights that even with fully caring consumers, markets left to themselves cannot aggregate social concern unless producers also act responsibly — contrary to the Friedman doctrine.