Eliciting the socially optimal allocation from responsible agents

We consider designing a mechanism to allocate objects among agents without monetary transfers. There is a socially optimal allocation, which is commonly known by the agents but not observable by the designer. The designer possibly has information about the existence of responsible agents. A responsible agent, when indifferent between his objects at two different allocations, prefers the first allocation to the second if the first allocation is closer to the optimal allocation than the second, in the sense that all the agents who are allocated their optimal objects in the second allocation are allocated their optimal objects also in the first allocation, and there is at least one more agent in the first allocation receiving his optimal object. We show that, if the designer knows that there are at least three responsible agents, even if the identities of the responsible agents are not known, the optimal allocation can be elicited.     

随机需求和提前时间存储系统的建模与仿真

讨论了需求量、需求发生的间隔以及提前时间都为随机变量的一般随机存储系统。以平均库存总费用和缺货率为系统性能指标建立仿真模型，将二者加权平均得到策略的综合系数。在各种费用参数给定后，利用计算机仿真技术来选定最优存储策略。     

A two-dimensional problem of revenue maximization

We consider the problem of finding the mechanism that maximizes the revenue of a seller of multiple objects. This problem turns out to be significantly more complex than the case where there is only a single object (which was solved by Myerson, 1981). The analysis is difficult even in the simplest case studied here, where there are two exclusive objects and a single buyer, with valuations uniformly distributed on triangular domains. We show that the optimal mechanisms are piecewise linear with either 2 or 3 pieces, and obtain explicit formulas for most cases of interest.     

模糊PID控制水位系统分析

PID调节规律对建立精确数学模型控制系统是非常有效的。但对于那些具有非线性、时变不确定性的控制对象,应用传统的PID调节器就难以实现有效的控制。文中提出了利用模糊PID控制技术,对水位进行控制,以使PLC对不同模型参数的系统均具有较好的控制性能,实现对系统动静态参数的最优控制。     

Characterization of bidding behavior in multi-unit auctions

This paper considers a very general class of single or multi-unit auctions of indivisible objects. The model allows for interdependent values, multidiminensional types and any attitude towards risk. Assuming only optimal behavior, we prove that each bid is chosen in order to equalize the marginal benefit to the marginal cost of bidding. This generalizes many existing results in the literature. We use this characterization to obtain sufficient conditions for truthful bidding, monotonic best reply strategies and identification results for multi-unit auctions.     

A latent time–budget model

Time–budgets summarize how the time of objects is distributed over a number of categories. Usually they are collected in object by category matrices with the property that rows of this data matrix add up to one. In this paper we discuss a model for the analysis of time–budgets that used this property. The model approximates the observed time–budgets by weighted sums of a number of latent time–budgets. These latent time–budgets determine the behavior of all objects. Special attention is given to the identification of the model. The model is compared with logcontrast principal component analysis.     

Conceptual structures as damped harmonic oscillators

This paper serves to examine certain hypotheses about the effect of information on cognitive processing generated by the Galileo model. This model proposes that objects of cognition are points within a multidimensional continuum, the definition of any object being its structural relation to all other objects in the continuum, and any change in structure can be modeled by Newtonian mechanics. This paper tests the hypothesis that new information will induce motion described by the equation for a damped harmonic oscillator, and that regions of the continuum where information is not directed will display motion as described by DeBroglie's equation. Results tentatively support the hypotheses, and the relation of this conceptualization with compatible models of physical reality is discussed.     

Egalitarianism under population change: Age structure does matter

We study the compatibility of the optimal population size concepts produced by different social welfare functions and egalitarianism meant as “equal consumption for all individuals of all generations”. Social welfare functions are parameterized by an altruism parameter generating the Benthamite and Millian criteria as polar cases. The economy considered is in continuous time and is populated by homogeneous cohorts with a given life span. Production functions are linear in labor, (costly) procreation is the unique way to transfer resources forward in time. First, we show that egalitarianism is optimal whatever the degree of altruism in “perpetual youth” model, that is when lifetime span is finite but age structure does not matter: in this case egalitarianism does not discriminate between the social welfare functions considered. Then we show that, when life span is finite but age structure matters, egalitarianism does not arise systematically as an optimal outcome. In particular, in a growing economy, that is when population growth is optimal in the long-run, this egalitarian rule can only hold when the welfare function is Benthamite. When altruism is impure, egalitarianism is impossible in the context of a growing economy. Either in the Benthamite or impure altruism cases, procreation is never optimal for small enough life spans, leading to finite time extinction and maximal consumption for all existing individuals.     

On a property of orthogonal arrays and optimal blocking of fractional factorial plans

It is shown that fractional factorial plans represented by orthogonal arrays of strength three are universally optimal under a model that includes the mean, all main effects and all two-factor interactions between a specified factor and each of the other factors. Thus, such plans exhibit a kind of model robustness in being universally optimal under two different models. Procedures for obtaining universally optimal block designs for fractional factorial plans represented by orthogonal arrays are also discussed. Acknowledgements. The authors wish to thank the referees for making several useful comments on a previous version.     

Possibly-Final Offers

A price-setting seller faces a buyer with unknown reservation value. We show that if the buyer is sufficiently risk averse, the seller can benefit from employing a Possibly-Final Offer (PFO) strategy. In a PFO, if the buyer rejects the seller's initial offer the seller sometimes terminates the interaction. If the seller does not terminate, he follows up with a subsequent, more attractive offer. As the buyer's risk aversion increases, the seller's expected profit under the optimal PFO approaches the full-information profit. These results extend to contexts with endogenous commitment, multiple types of buyers, multidimensional objects, and nonseparable utility functions.     

Optimal reinsurance with multiple tranches

Motivated by common practices in the reinsurance industry and in insurance markets such as Lloyd’s, we study the general problem of optimal insurance contracts design in the presence of multiple insurance providers. We show that the optimal risk allocation rule is characterized by a hierarchical structure of risk sharing where all agents take on risks only above the endogenously determined thresholds, or agent-specific deductibles. Linear risk sharing between two adjacent thresholds is shown to be optimal when all agents have CARA utilities. Furthermore, we show that the optimal thresholds can be efficiently calculated through the fixed point of a contraction mapping.     

Ontology With Human subjects Testing:

A bstract The paper presents a framework for the formulation and testing of ontological theories embodied in human cognition, concentrating primarily on the domain of geographic categories. Evidence for and against alternative theories of cognitive categories, for example on the part of E. Rosch and her associates, has been hitherto hased primarily on studies of categorization of entities of table-top space (pets, tools, fruits). We hypothesize that the structure of our categories does not remain constant as we move from categories of abjects at manipulable scales to geographic categories suchas nation, mountain, river. Mre precisely: Geographic objects are not merely located in space, they are tied intrinsically to space in such a way that they inherit from space many of its structural (mercological, topological, geometrical) properties. Categorization in the geographic world is often size-or scale-dependent (consider:pond, lake, sea, ocean), and to a much greater extent than in the world of table-top space, the realization that a thing or type of thing exists at all in the geographic world may have individual or culturalvariability. Geographic objects are in very many cases the products of delineation within a continuum, and the boundaries of such objects are themselves highly salient phenomena for purposes of categorization. A battery of experiments is described to test these hypotheses and to serve as bases for more detailed ontological theorizing.     

实物法在投标报价中的应用

工程报价是承包商的一项基本工作,它在很大程度上决定承包商能否中标和中标后的盈亏水平.在实际工作中,采用的方法有定额法和实物法2种,其中最能反映工程实际所消耗成本的计价方法是实物法.实物法能直观准确地把工程将要消耗的各种费用和盈利水平表现出来.在国际工程还没有定额规范的时代,实物法已经逐渐成为企业竞逐国际市场的报价方法.文章讨论了如何在投标报价中灵活地运用实物法.     

Planning for education in the health services: a multicriterion approach.

Administrators are often confronted with problems for which there exist several distinct measures of success. Such problems can be expressed in terms of linear programming models with several linear “criterion” functions instead of a single objective function. Although a variety of techniques are available for the solution of multicriterion problems, there exists a need for one which does not assume technical sophistication on the part of the decision maker and which provides valid solutions with minimum effort. “Efficient Manifold Presentation”, the approach used here, is based on the concept that the ideal solution must be a Pareto optimal solution. A method for finding an expression for the finite set of all Pareto optimal solutions to a linear program with multiple linear criteria is presented. Two processes are involved; first, the discovery of all Pareto optimal vertices of the feasible region, and secondly a grouping of these into sets each of which defines a convex polyhedron of Pareto optimal possibilities. Alternate versions of the second process are suggested for use under varying circumstances. An example of the applicability of the method for modeling enrollment and staffing policy in an educational institution is provided.     

我国钟表维修工职业培训包的开发过程及现实意义

"职业培训包"是依据国家职业标准,针对某一职业各层次的培训对象进行职业技能培训的资源总和。培训包的一个核心要素即是能力标准,钟表维修工职业培训包的开发对于其他工作的开展起到了借鉴铺垫的意义。     

Real Estate as Institutional Fact: Towards A Philosophy of Everyday Objects

A bstract . Rigorous tools which are well known to philosophers can be put to use in the analyses of many concepts pertaining to social reality. This paper attempts to apply the distinction between brute and institutional facts advanced by John Searle to the analysis of property rights over land. It might be commonplace to suggest that all rights are entities whose existence is an institutional fact, i.e., it is the result of human conventions. In the case of property rights, it is not merely at this level that institutional reality confronts us. The object over which the property right falls, a land parcel, is itself an entity whose existence is an institutional fact. This doubly institutional character of property rights makes it easier to see that property rights over land have many important differences with other sorts of property rights. Of course, some of these differences have been pointed out before, say, by appealing to the seminal distinction between movables and immovables, but never with the rigor or the justification that I attempt here. As a result of taking seriously the nature of the object over which the right falls, we can see that property rights over land have more in common with other sorts of relationships, such as political conceptions of sovereignty, than with other forms of property rights. Real estate is just one of a myriad of social objects that we encounter every day. The ontology developed here is but one example of how philosophical analysis of everyday objects enriches our understanding of the social world, and offers us tools for clearer, practical treatment of these objects.     

供水系统扩建工程的有效成本分析

供水系统需要大量投资。自来水公司经常面临基础设施的扩建任务，以满足用户需求。应用有效成本分析技术，在需求、成本和供水能力关系的基础上，建立了最优扩建模型来制定计划和确定最优的扩建周期。     

SMEs and public procurement policy

In this paper, we characterize an optimal procurement policy as a mechanism design problem when an allotment of the contract is available, i.e., when a government faces both SMEs and large firms for carrying out a heterogeneously divisible project. Our model allows us to analyze all procurement policies (set-asides, favoritism, non-discriminatory rules), taking into account both efficiency and distributive arguments and derive a normative framework. We show that set-asides are not generally optimal, whatever the industrial preferences of the government are, while the optimal preferential treatments of firms implies complex non-linear rules. We prove that the optimal policy can be implemented using a modified Vickrey-type auction. We also consider that the firms can reduce their cost by a non observable effort, and exhibit the specific impact of cost reduction incentives on the optimal policies.Received: 24 September 2001, JEL Classification: D44Pierre-HenriMorand : I am grateful to the anonymous referees for comments. The usualdisclaimer applies.     

Optimal investment and reinsurance policies for an insurer with ambiguity aversion

In this paper, we study the optimal investment and reinsurance problem for an insurer based on the variance premium principle, in which three cases are considered. First, we assume that the financial market does not exist. The insurer only holds an insurance business, and the optimal reinsurance problem is studied. Subsequently, we assume that there exists a financial market with an accurately modeled risky asset. The optimal investment and reinsurance problem is investigated under these conditions. Finally, we consider the general case in which the insurer is concerned about the model ambiguity of both the insurance market and the financial market. In all three cases, the value function is set to maximize the expected utility of terminal wealth. By employing the dynamic programming principle, we derive the Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) equations, which are satisfied by the value functions and obtain closed-form solutions for optimal reinsurance and investment policies and the value functions in all three cases. Most interestingly, we elucidate how investment improves the insurer’s utility and find that the existence of ambiguity can significantly affect the optimal policies and value functions. We also compare the ambiguities in the two markets and find that ambiguity in the insurance market has much more significant impact on the value function than the ambiguity in the financial market. It implies that it is more valuable for insurer to precisely evaluate the insurance risk. We also provide some numerical examples and economic explanations to illustrate our results.     

Optimal deterministic contracting mechanisms for principal-agent problems with moral hazard and adverse selection

For the principal-agent problem with moral hazard and adverse selection we establish that within the collection of all measurable, deterministic contracting mechanisms satisfying the individual rationality and incentive compatibility constraints there exists one that is optimal for a risk averse principal contracting with a risk averse agent. In addition to demonstrating existence, one of the main contributions of the paper is to show that, in general, centralized contracting implemented via a contracting mechanism is equivalent to delegated contracting implemented via a contract menu. Thus, contracting can always be delegated to the agent without gain or loss to the principal. Based on this result, the existence of an optimal contracting mechanism for the principal-agent problem is established by showing that there exists an optimal contract menu for the equivalent delegated contracting problem. Received: 7 October 1994 / Accepted: 14 January 1997