Please provide different topics with short outlines to consider writing about based on the following requirements:

I want to write a paper about multiple equilibria.

We see differences in behavior in outcomes and behavior all over the world. Some are economic- some people are wealthy and others are poor, people and countries are in different industries, have access to different transportation methods and networks, have different education/health/political systems, etc. Others are not economic - some people drive on the left and others on the right, countries have different types of power outlets, some people say "tu" and others say "vos" when talking to friends (while others don't even talk in Spanish!), some people like spicy food and others don't. We don't always have to "see" the path not taken to think about it: for instance, consider about the qwerty default for keyboards, or that north is "up" in maps.

These differences in behavior could be due to fundamentals (for instance: spicy food is more useful in hot places), luck (spicy peppers happen to grow in Peru but not Argentina), or they could be due to self-reinforcing behavior (if kids aren't brought up earing spicy food, they are unlikely to eat them as adults). Often the fundamental reason dies out, but the behavior remains - hysteresis.1

In development, an iconic example of multiple equilibria are poverty traps. With poverty traps, there are "good" and "bad" equilibria. But you I don't want to be constrained to this type of setting. In class, we discussed settings with multiple equilibria where the equilibria aren't really ranked, for instance the Magrebi and Genoese solutions to the fundamental problem of exchange. I don't want to n constrain myself only to settings where one equilibrium is obviously worse.

The paper is on multiple equilibria. In particular, I would like to discuss some feature of the world that I think is caused by multiple equilibria (and not by fundamental differences in exogenous characteristics.). I would prefer to not consider schooling, healthiness, or corruption.

a) I want to start the paper by describing exactly what the phenomenon I am interested in is. Pick a specific context to discuss. You can describe the theory in just words and no math. Be clear exactly what the mechanism is that preserves different equilibria. We also discussed convergence. Cross country incomes, human capital, capital per worker, and manufacturing TFP have converged over the last few decades. Why do you think your observed differences will persist (and/or have persisted)?

b) Apply your theory to your specific context. Do the mechanisms you propose show up? You don't have to do your own data collection/analysis, but the paper does need to take the real world seriously. Don't try to write about all countries at once - you should really pick a specific place or two. Use specific details about those places to inform your argument.

You can draw from academic papers, policy briefs, newspaper articles, your own experiences, etc. Be sure think about causality - just because you see a relationship in the data, it doesn't mean that it represents a causal effect. If you want, you can describe why the different equilibria emerged - why do people behave differently? Hysteresis? Luck? Something else?

c) hunger poverty trap, mechanisms existing does not mean that there will be multiple equilibria (so: hunger probably does cause people to be less productive, and poorer people do eat less, but neither effect is large enough to create an S-shaped curve for the relationship between hunger today and hunger tomorrow). Given your answers in (b), do you think multiple equilibria is an explanation for the phenomena you describe in (a)? It is totally fine if the answer is "no" As long as your theory is plausible and you do good empirical work. However, you should not say that your theory is correct if the evidence isn't there.

1 To give a silly example: short hair is more useful if you are wearing a helmet, which is why in the West it is more traditional for men to have short hair. The short hair equilibrium persists even though helmet wearing is now fairly uncommon. 2 The topic barely has to be about economics - as long as you are making an argument for multiple equilibria, I'm happy.