Placement Director: Vijay Krishna
    (814) 863-8543
    vkrishna@psu.edu

Contact Information:
Shizuka Nishikawa
  Office: (540) 458-8049
  Cell: (814) 574-6428
E-mail: nishikawas@wlu.edu
Website: http://www.econ.psu.edu/~sun106/

CITIZENSHIP:

• Japan (F-1 VISA OPT)

CURRENT POSITION:

• Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Washington and Lee University, 2007-present

EDUCATION:

• Ph.D., Economics, The Pennsylvania State University, final oral defense completed in August 2007
• M.A., Economics, Keio University , Japan , 2000
• B.A., Economics, Keio University , Japan , 1998

PH.D. THESIS:

• "Essays on the Theory of Environmental Coalitions”
  Thesis Advisor: Professor Kalyan Chatterjee

FIELDS:

• Primary: Microeconomic Theory
• Secondary : Industrial Organization, Environmental Economics

PAPERS:

• “Dynamic Sequential Coalition Formation for Provision of a  Public Good” (Job Market Paper) (submitted)
• “Coalition Formation with Environmental Externalities”  (submitted)
• “Dynamic Voluntary Public Good Provision Game with  Incomplete Information” (in progress)

GRANTS &
FELLOWSHIPS:

• Graduate Scholarship, Keio University, Japan, 1999-2000
• Scholarship for Graduate Studies, Nihon Ikuei Kai Foundation, Japan, 2000-2003

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

• Instructor: Intermediate Microeconomic Analysis (7 semesters at Penn State ) Principles of Microeconomics (at Washington and Lee University )
• Teaching Assistant: Intermediate Microeconomic Analysis, Introductory Microeconomics (at Penn State, 2001-2003, 2006)

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE:

• Research Assistant for Professor Kala Krishna, Summer 2003
• Research Assistant for Professor Kalyan Chatterjee, Summer 2006

Awards:

• Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award, Penn State University , 2006 (University-wide award)

REFERENCES:

• Professor Kalyan Chatterjee
• Professor James Jordan
• Professor Vijay Krishna
• Professor Neil Wallace
• Professor Carl Kaiser

THESIS ABSTRACT

We analyze a dynamic coalition formation game for the provision of a public good, which will be provided only when a certain number of contributions are made. In each period, one player is chosen as a proposer who asks a set of players to contribute (form a coalition). Players in the proposed coalition make responses sequentially in an exogenously given order.

In finite horizon games, we specify the exact period in which the public good will be provided under subgame-perfect equilibria and show that for some costs there will be a delay in provision of the public good. We get a counter intuitive result where the public good is provided earlier at higher costs than at lower costs. In infinite horizon games, we show that the immediate provision of a public good can be achieved in some subgame-perfect equilibria, but there might be delay under some other equilibria.

We also introduce a partial public good, which requires fewer contributions to be provided but has a smaller value. We show that for some costs, introducing the partial public good eliminates the possibility of provision of any kind of public good in both finite and infinite horizon games. For other costs, introducing the partial public good may improve social welfare.

Essay 2. Coalition Formation with Environmental Externalities

In the presence of environmental externalities, it is crucial to have a self enforcing agreement amongst players in order to avoid excessive pollution. In this paper, we introduce a two-stage game, with coalition formation in the first stage and Cournot oligopoly in the second, to show how coalition formation takes place and affects the environmental level.

Under different membership rules we get coalitions of different sizes, which affect the environmental level significantly. In open membership games with symmetric players, the coalition formation process fails, so that the players act independently. In coalition unanimity games with symmetric players, the resulting coalition is the grand coalition, which maximizes the environmental level and improves social welfare compared to the case with open membership.

In games with asymmetric players, we analyze coalition formation with and without an endogenous transfer scheme. In the game with a transfer scheme we show that it is possible to achieve a larger coalition than in the game without transfers. For a simple case we explicitly characterize the transfers and their effects on the coalition size.