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The Economic Theory workshop is a weekly seminar taking place on fridays 12-13h at the Maison des Sciences Economiques (106-112 Boulevard de l'Hôpital). This seminar is a venue for theoretical work in Economics and for work drawing on quantitative methods in Economics. Defined by an approach rather than by a specific theme, the topics of the seminar can concern a variety of areas in Economics, such as (non exhaustively), micro economics, game theory, mathematical economics, decisions theory, finance or macro economics. The seminar functions as an internal workshop but also regularly greets speakers from other institutions.

Organizers: Emily Tanimura, Stéphane Zuber, Anna Bogomolnaia and Hervé Moulin,

If you want to be added to the seminar mailing list, or for any other query about the Economic Theory seminar, please feel free to contact Emily Tanimura (emily(dot)tanimura(at)univ-paris1(dot)fr).

It is supported by the Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne, CNRS and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

• October 10th: Susumu Cato (University of Tokyo )

Title:  "What the Demands of Sustainability Can(not) Be" (joint work with Katie Steele)

Location: Maison des Sciences Économiques, room S16

Summary:  Since the goal of "sustainable development" has gained authority (not least through landmark statements like the 1987 Brundtland Report) there have been attempts to characterise what, at core, is the intended constraint on policy and other choices. On one popular approach, it is about privileging development trajectories whereby each successive generation achieves as much welfare (or whatever is deemed to matter) as the previous generation. Here we investigate how such a sustainability constraint can be plausibly refined. We do this by first proving a central `impossibility result' that pertains to a salient formulation of the constraint, showing that it is incompatible with minimal consistency requirements if it is to have universal scope. We subsequently explore the `ways out' of this impossibility result, and in so doing examine why the result may have been previously overlooked, and whether there is a nearby reading of sustainability that is defensible. The most promising possibilities, we claim, amount to very different proposals regarding the scope and moral significance of the demands of sustainability. 

• October 17th: Joseph Abdou (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne )

Title:  A Category of the Political- Part 1  

(Note that this seminar will take the form of a mini course given in two consecutive seminars)

Location: Maison des Sciences Économiques, room S17. 

Summary:  This study aims to develop a model of the polity. Any theory of the political must, within a coherent conceptual framework, account for both the organization and the transformation of the political entity.  Formally  we introduce two  Mathematical categories. The first category named Political Configuration depends on one variable called the Base (set of parties).  An object of this category called political formation  extends  the  notion of simplicial complex, and a morphism extends  the well-known  notion of simplicial map. The second category named  Political Foundation depends on two variables : the Base  and the Ground, the latter consisting of a set of states that reflect all relevant interests/values/aspirations of the Base members.   An object of this category, called a political site, describes how the interests/values/aspirations  are intertwined between the parties.  A morphism between political sites consists of a  pair of maps, namely  a base map and a ground map, satisfying appropriate conditions. Two functors that relate the Foundation and  the Configuration, the Knit and the Nerve are considered

The first lesson presents the Basic concepts and describes the categories with  morphisms  based on set functions. The second lesson (October 24th) extends the construction to morphisms based on set correspondences.

• October  31st   :  University vacation period- no seminar 

• November 7th: Joseph Abdou (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne )

Title:  A Category of the Political- Part 2  

(This seminar session is the second part of the mini-course whose first part was presented on October 17th. NOTA BENE: this session has been moved) 

Location: Maison des Sciences Économiques, room S17. 

Summary:  This study aims to develop a model of the polity. Any theory of the political must, within a coherent conceptual framework, account for both the organization and the transformation of the political entity.  Formally  we introduce two  Mathematical categories. The first category named Political Configuration depends on one variable called the Base (set of parties).  An object of this category called political formation  extends  the  notion of simplicial complex, and a morphism extends  the well-known  notion of simplicial map. The second category named  Political Foundation depends on two variables : the Base  and the Ground, the latter consisting of a set of states that reflect all relevant interests/values/aspirations of the Base members.   An object of this category, called a political site, describes how the interests/values/aspirations  are intertwined between the parties.  A morphism between political sites consists of a  pair of maps, namely  a base map and a ground map, satisfying appropriate conditions. Two functors that relate the Foundation and  the Configuration, the Knit and the Nerve are considered

After a first lesson which presented the Basic concepts, this second lesson extends the construction to morphisms based on set correspondences.

• November 14th: Fabian Aguirre (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne )

Title:  TBA

Location: Maison des Sciences Économiques, room S17. 

Summary:  TBA

• December 12th: Joseph Halpern (Cornell University )

Title:  TBA

Location: Maison des Sciences Économiques, room S17. 

Summary:  TBA

• February 6th: Evan Piermont (Royal Holloway University )

Title:  TBA

Location: Maison des Sciences Économiques, room S17 

Summary:  TBA

• February 13th: Noriaki Kiguchi  (Tokyo University)

Title :  TBA

Location: Maison des Sciences Économiques, room S17. 

Summary:  TBA

• April 24th: Peter Hammond (Warwick University)

Title:  TBA

Location: Maison des Sciences Économiques, room S17. 

Summary:  TBA

• June 26th: Arnaud Dragicevic  (Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok  )

Title: Transitioning from a Non-Symbiotic to a Symbiotic Regime: A Renewable Natural Resources Perspective

Location: Maison des Sciences Économiques, room S17. 

Summary:  TBA