nd behavior in future in order

技术Information Technology127-129TP311.13I1389I;I1     

Are your employees minding their behavior?

Self-managed, "tailored" behavioral change programs cross both wellness and disease management issues and can impact the bottom line on health care costs of both employer and employee. For example, a back pain program can help change employee behavior to prevent the incidence and upflow of a condition to more severe and debilitating situations.     

China’s value-added tax reform,firm behavior and performance

China reformed value-added tax (VAT) by removing investment from the tax base in northeastern provinces in 2004, which is a “natural experiment” of its tax system. Using difference-in-differences method, this paper for the first time investigates the impact of VAT reform on China firms’ fixed asset investment, employment behavior, innovative activities, and productivity, and furthermore discusses the impact of firm behavior on industrial structural upgrade and employment with a firm-level panel data of large and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises in China. We find that VAT reform significantly promotes firms’ fixed asset investment, and increases firms’ capital-labor ratio and productivity; while enhancement of firms’ productivity is mainly achieved by means of substituting labor with capital, rather than independent technology innovation; meanwhile, VAT reform distinctly decreases employment. Our findings have essential policy implications on the extension of VAT reform in the entire China.     

Satisficing behavior, Brouwer’s Fixed Point Theorem and Nash Equilibrium

Summary. We show that Nash Equilibrium points can be obtained by using response maps or reply functions that simply use better responses rather than best responses. We demonstrate the existence of a Nash Equilibrium as the fixed point of a better response map and since the better response map is continuous the fixed point can be established by simply using Brouwers fixed point theorem. The proof applies to games with a finite number of strategies as well as to games with a continuum of strategies. In case the games have a continuum of strategies the payoff functions have to be continuous on the action sets and quasi concave on the players action set.Received: 22 September 2003, Revised: 31 March 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: C72, D00, D40. Correspondence to: Robert A. BeckerWe have benefited from comments on an earlier draft made by participants at Indiana Universitys Microeconomics workshop (October 2002) and the Midwest Economic Theory Conference held at the University of Pittsburgh (May 2003). We also thank Roy Gardner for comments on earlier versions. We thank the Associate Editor, Mark Machina, for his detailed comments and suggestions. This project began when Subir Chakrabarti was a visitor in the Department of Economics, Indiana University, Bloomington in the Spring of 2002. He thanks that department for its support.     

A study of factors influencing consumers＇ behavior in recycling waste household electronic appliances

The innovation of technologzv and the improvement of people＇s living standard accelerate the replacement of consumer electronic appliances, resulting in a significant increase of waste household electronic appliances （WHEA）. To address the environmental problems of WHEA, many countries have enacted legislation according to WHEA management, including collecting, processing and recycling. The regulations on the management of WHEA were also drafted in China and pilot programs of WHEA recycling management encountered difficulties in collecting WHEA. The success of a recycling scheme is dependent on people＇s willingness of participating in the scheme, This paper applies Ajzen＇s theory of planned behavior to seek the main factors to engourage consumers to participate in WHEA recycling management in China. Data from a survey conducted with a sample of 633 consumers show that service motivation is the first predictor of participation behavior intention, followed by environmental behavior attitude, economic motivation, subjective norm. and perceived behavior barrier. Environmental knowledge is found not to be the predictor of behavior intention in this recycling scheme. Study results also suggest that publicity is the key situational factor in the WHEA recycling management. Recycling network and policy have little influence on changing consumers＇ current behavior intention and participation. Implications of the findings are discussed and future research directions are suggested in the end.     

Cyclical behavior of crude oil markets and economic recessions in the period 1986–2010

For at least one century, crude oil has been one of the most important commodities for the worldwide economic activity. Important technological innovations, including chemical transformation processes and transportation systems, have been based on the availability or not of crude oil. In this way, a close understanding of the crude oil market dynamics should provide insights in important aspects related to potential directions of technological change for both improving crude oil transformation efficiency and substitution by alternative energy sources. This paper studies the dynamics of the crude oil price for the period from 1986 to 2010. To this end, the entropy time-asymmetry is computed along the price trajectory. Empirical results indicated the presence of a non-regular cyclical behavior with a dominant period of about 4.5 years. Some evidences pointing toward a comovement of entropy time-asymmetry peaks with major US economic recessions are found, suggesting a tight relationship between macroeconomy and crude oil prices. The results are discussed in terms of the major economic events that occurred in the upward and downward cycle periods and potential implications for the design of energy policies.     

Violating the Monotonicity condition for instrumental variable—Dimorphic patterns of gene–behavior association

I document the dimorphic patterns for the association between DAT1 9R9R genotype and measures of risky behaviors including drinking, use of marijuana, cocaine, other drugs, and number of sexual partners. The associations between DAT1 9R9R genotype and risky behaviors are often in opposite signs for females and males, in the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). This article sensitizes the researcher on the sexual dimorphic pattern of gene–behavior association, and its risk to violate the Monotonicity (no-defiers) condition in applications that use genetic markers as instrumental variables.     

A survey of the influencing factors and models for resident＇s household waste management behavior

The problem of household solid waste has been concerned and researched on by municipalities and researchers.At present, household solid waste has been changed to management problem from technical one. From the point view ofmanagement, the research on household solid waste is to study the factors which influence resident’s behavior ofmanaging their waste. Based on the literature review, firstly, this paper summarizes those factors which have alreadybeen identified to have impact on resident’s behavior of managing their waste. They are social-demographic variables,knowledge, environmental values, psychological factors, publicity and system design. Secondly, three typical models ofthe relationship between factors and behavior, which are factors determining task performance in waste management,conceptualization of waste management behavior and the theoretical model of repeated behavior on household wastemanagement, are analyzed and the deficiencies of these models are also analyzed. Finally, according to the currentsituation in household waste management and the culture and resident’s habits in China, this paper puts forward aresearch focus and suggestions about resident’s behavior of household solid waste management.     

Has the EMU reduced wage growth and unemployment? Testing a model of trade union behavior

Grüner (2010) argues that the introduction of the European Monetary Union (EMU) led to lower wage growth and lower unemployment in participating countries. According to Grüner, monetary centralization increases the amplitude of national business cycles, which leads to higher unemployment risk. In order to counter-balance this effect, trade unions lower their claims for wage mark-ups, resulting in lower wage growth and lower unemployment. This paper uses macroeconomic data on OECD countries and a difference-in-differences approach to empirically test the implications of this model. Although we come up with some weak evidence for increased business cycle amplitudes within the EMU, we neither find a significant general effect of the EMU on wage growth nor on unemployment.     

Return, purchase, or skip? Outcome, duration, and consumer behavior in the rent-to-own market

Rent-to-own (RTO) is attractive to financially distressed consumers. It allows immediate access to merchandise and an opportunity for eventually acquisition. Yet goods can be returned at any point without penalty or other adverse consequences. We use a competing risk methodology that accounts for unobserved consumer heterogeneity to study how contracts conclude, estimating the probabilities of exit??via return, purchase, or skip??and the associated durations. The estimated outcome probabilities highlight the use of the embedded return option by RTO consumers and the trade-offs and cross-subsidization implicit in the RTO contractual arrangement. We offer rational and behavioral explanations of consumer behavior in the RTO market, which we believe can be generalized to other consumer loan markets.     

Internal financial constraints and firm productivity in China: Do liquidity and export behavior make a difference?

Financial factors have been found highly important in influencing firms’ real activities and in promoting aggregate growth. Yet, the linkage between finance and firm-level productivity has been overlooked in the literature. We fill this gap using a panel of 130,840 Chinese manufacturing firms over the period 2001–2007 to estimate a TFP model augmented with cash flow. We find that, especially for illiquid foreign and private firms, productivity is strongly constrained by the availability of internal finance. Furthermore, contrary to private firms, foreign non-exporters display higher dependence of productivity on cash flow than exporters.     

Agent-based modelling of novelty creating behavior and sectoral growth effects—Linking the creative and the destructive side of innovation

For grasping the relationship between novelty creating activities of agents and growth of economic aggregates, a multi-level approach is suggested. The first level specifies the triggering conditions for novelty creating activities for the agents, i.e. firms. Here the behavioral elements and the modes of actions for the firms are portrayed using an agent-based approach (Section?2). On the second level, the consequences of successful innovations and imitations in a given sector of economic activities are dealt with (Section?3). This depends on the frequency of successful novelties and on the way they diffuse in that sector. We use an agent-related functional approach, applying difference equations for depicting the stylized facts of the diffusion dynamics. Only if these different levels of economic dynamics are distinguished as well as related to each other, is it possible to derive aggregate effects of novelties for the whole economy. This will be done by way of computer simulations (Section?4). Conclusions are drawn in Section?5.     

Is physician behavior too serious a business to be left to economics? Reply to medical altruism in mainstream health economics: theoretical and political paradoxes

This short paper is a Reply to ‘Medical altruism in mainstream health economics: theoretical and political paradoxes. COMMENTS’.