Gerard van der Laan, born in Dirksland, the Netherlands, in 1951. Ph.D. from the VU University, Amsterdam. Professor of Mathematical Economics at the VU University, Amsterdam.
Fellow (1 February 1995 – 30 June 1995)
During my stay at NIAS as a member of the theme group “Understanding Social Dilemmas” I worked on several projects. The first project “DROWN” was a common activity of the research group about the organisation and policy options of the water industry in the Netherlands. The results of this research have been presented on the yearly symposium of the VWN, the Netherlands association of water companies. In the second project about the “Public/Private Provision of Services in a General Equilibrium Model” I am working together with Pieter Ruys. This project emerged from the water project and combines elements from our joint work on industrial infrastructure and work of Vasil’ev on equilibrium in a mixed economy. This research aims to provide a sound economic basis for developing marketable products in the public sector. One of the applications is the development of marketable water products. The third project about “Price adjustments in a mixed economy” is joint research with Valery Vasil’ev. In a mixed economy there are two markets for every commodity, the first market is regulated by the government, the second market is free. The aim of this work is to design a smooth procedure for adjusting the fixed prices to the free prices. This is of relevance for the economies in Eastern Europe. The fourth project concerns the problem of “Co operation under Externalities”. This research is about the game theoretic analysis of selling an item from which the potential buyers experience negative externalities. This research has resulted in two papers. In the first paper we consider the game theoretic modelling of the problem. In the second paper we give a full analysis of the game theoretic outcomes. Finally I worked on the project “Axiomatization of the Normalized Banzhaf Value”. The Banzhaf value measures the power of players in co operative games, for instance the power of political parties in the parliament. This research concerns the axiomatization of the normalized Banzhaf value and has also resulted in two papers.