IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/ajlecn/v8y2017i2p9n4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Behavioral Despair in the Talmud: New Solutions to Unsolved Millennium-Old Legal Problems

Author

Listed:
  • Maymin Philip Z.

    (University of Bridgeport, Trefz School of Business, Bridgeport, CT 06604-7620, USA)

  • Maymin Zakhar G.
  • Maymin Zina N.

    (Quantitative Investment Services, Greenwich, CT 06807, USA)

Abstract

We solve two “unsolvable” (teyku) problems from the Talmud that had remained unsolved for about one and a half thousand years despite massive and nearly continuous commentary and analysis throughout the centuries. The Talmudic problems concern the implied decision-making of farmers who have left some scattered fruit behind, and the alleged impossibility of knowing whether they would return for given amounts of fruit over given amounts of land area if we aware of their behavior at exactly one point. We solve the problems by formalizing the Talmudic discussion and expressing five natural economic and mathematical assumptions that are also eminently reasonable in the original domain. If we also allow a sixth assumption regarding the farmer’s minimum wage, we can solve two other related unsolvable problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Maymin Philip Z. & Maymin Zakhar G. & Maymin Zina N., 2017. "Behavioral Despair in the Talmud: New Solutions to Unsolved Millennium-Old Legal Problems," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 1-9, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:ajlecn:v:8:y:2017:i:2:p:9:n:4
    DOI: 10.1515/ajle-2016-0027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/ajle-2016-0027
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/ajle-2016-0027?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Colin Camerer & Linda Babcock & George Loewenstein & Richard Thaler, 1997. "Labor Supply of New York City Cabdrivers: One Day at a Time," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 407-441.
    2. Aumann, Robert J. & Maschler, Michael, 1985. "Game theoretic analysis of a bankruptcy problem from the Talmud," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 195-213, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ishii, Takaharu, 2023. "Reference-dependent preferences and probability judgments," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    2. Marcela Ibanez & Sebastian O. Schneider, 2023. "Income Risk, Precautionary Saving, and Loss Aversion – An Empirical Test," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2023_06, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    3. Mark T. Kanazawa, 2019. "Transaction Costs in Water Transfers: The issue of local control," Working Papers 2019-01, Carleton College, Department of Economics.
    4. Emin Karagözoğlu, 2014. "A noncooperative approach to bankruptcy problems with an endogenous estate," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 217(1), pages 299-318, June.
    5. William Thomson, 2007. "On the existence of consistent rules to adjudicate conflicting claims: a constructive geometric approach," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 11(3), pages 225-251, November.
    6. Doran, Kirk, 2014. "Are long-term wage elasticities of labor supply more negative than short-term ones?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 208-210.
    7. Gabrielle Demange & Michel L. Balinski, 1989. "An Axiomatic Approach to Proportionality between Matrices," Post-Print halshs-00670952, HAL.
    8. Ketelaars, Martijn & Borm, Peter & Herings, P.J.J., 2023. "Duality in Financial Networks," Other publications TiSEM 26750293-9599-4e05-9ae1-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Ranganathan, Kavitha & Lejarraga, Tomás, 2021. "Elicitation of risk preferences through satisficing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    10. Erlanson, Albin & Szwagrzak, Karol, 2013. "Strategy-Proof Package Assignment," Working Papers 2013:43, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    11. Mariotti, Marco & Wen, Quan, 2021. "A noncooperative foundation of the competitive divisions for bads," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    12. Carmen Herrero & Juan Moreno-Ternero & Giovanni Ponti, 2010. "On the adjudication of conflicting claims: an experimental study," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 34(1), pages 145-179, January.
    13. Lechthaler, Wolfgang & Ring, Patrick, 2021. "Labor force participation, job search effort and unemployment insurance in the laboratory," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 748-778.
    14. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    15. Kohei Daido & Takeshi Murooka, 2016. "Team Incentives and Reference‐Dependent Preferences," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 958-989, December.
    16. Juanjuan Meng & Xi Weng, 2018. "Can Prospect Theory Explain the Disposition Effect? A New Perspective on Reference Points," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 3331-3351, July.
    17. Peter Knudsen & Lars Østerdal, 2012. "Merging and splitting in cooperative games: some (im)possibility results," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 41(4), pages 763-774, November.
    18. Katharina Eckartz & Oliver Kirchkamp & Daniel Schunk, 2012. "How do Incentives Affect Creativity?," CESifo Working Paper Series 4049, CESifo.
    19. Ergin Bayrak & John P. Conley & Simon Wilkie, 2011. "The Economics of Cloud Computing," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 27, pages 203-230.
    20. repec:esx:essedp:762 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. repec:bri:cmpowp:14/336 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. O. Tejada and M. Alvarez-Mozos, 2012. "Vertical Syndication-Proof Competitive Prices in Multilateral Markets," Working Papers in Economics 283, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:ajlecn:v:8:y:2017:i:2:p:9:n:4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.