Sequencing and the Adding-up Property in Contingent Valuation of Endangered Species: Are Contingent Non-Use Values Economic Values?

This paper presents tests of the theoretical validity of the contingent valuation (CV) method. The validity of CV is especially a concern when involving environmental goods with a predominant non-use value. One test of theoretical validity is the adding-up property that implies that a specific good should be equally valued irrespectively of it is being valued directly or built-up sequentially. In this CV study four independent sub-samples stated willingness to pay for the same composite good, or package, using different sequences. One sub-sample valued the composite good directly, while two sub-samples faced built-up sequences valuing first subsets of this composite good. A fourth sub-sample valued the composite good from a dividing-out approach, facing first the valuation of a larger multi-package. Theoretically expected sequencing effects were observed; the subset goods obtained higher values earlier in a sequence, and the dividing-out approach decreased the stated value for the composite good. Most importantly, these CV data did pass the tests of the adding-up property.     

On strategic complementarity conditions in Bertrand oligopoly

Summary. For Bertrand duopoly with linear costs, we establish via a single (counter-)example that: (i) A new monotone transformation of the firms' profit functions may lead to the supermodularity of transformed profits when the standard log and identity transformations both fail to do so, and (ii) Topkis's notion of critical sufficient condition for monotonicity of a Bertrand firm's best-reply correspondence cannot be extended to rely only on positive unit costs. Received: January 16, 2001; revised version: March 20, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" This work was completed while the first author was visiting the Institute for Industrial Economics at the University of Copenhagen during Spring 2000. Their financial support and stimulating research environment are gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed here are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the European Commission. Correspondence to: R. Amir     

论国际经济法的形成发展与知识产权国际保护

国际经济法是国际公法的一个重要组成部分，它经过了三个阶段的形成与发展。特别是自上世纪70年代以来，国际知识产权组织成立，国际知识产权的法律地位日益突出，知识产权的法律保护也就成为各国关注的焦点。如何推动更公平、平等的国际经济新秩序和知识产权法律的完善与发展，是值得研究的新课题。     

家族企业中的家族成员退出

家族成员的退出是家族企业正式组织与非正式组织统一的开始，是我国家族企业长远发展的前提。家族成员将其拥有的控制权全部或者部分售出，以换取明确份额的收益权，从而退出企业。在这个过程中，家族企业需要充分考虑影响退出过程的各个因素，选择适宜的方法，使退出成为提高企业资源整合效率的动力。     

Good News and Bad News: Search from Unknown Wage Offer Distributions

The largest market in national economies is the labor market. Labor market contracting is characterized by job search, often from unknown wage offer distributions. This paper reports experimental tests of finite horizon models of job search in which the wage offer distribution is unknown. Theoretically-optimal search from an unknown wage offer distribution can have the seemingly paradoxical property that some offers will be accepted that are lower than other offers that will be rejected in the same period of the search horizon. Thus the reservation wage property (or lowest acceptable wage path) may not exist. This can occur because an offer that is a priori relatively high (good news) can imply that it is highly probable that search is from a favorable distribution, and such an offer can look unattractive when it is an a posteriori relatively low offer from a favorable distribution (bad news). This paper reports results from experimental treatments for search from unknown distributions in which the reservation wage property does exist and treatments in which it does not exist. We find that the consistency of search behavior with search theory reported in earlier papers is robust to the presence or absence of the reservation wage property and to whether the draws come from known or unknown distributions.     

Negligent hiring: Reducing the risk

In recent years, the responsibility of employers to hire people who are not dangerous or violent has been heightened by the tort, negligent hiring. The courts have ruled that certain employers owe a special duty to employees and third parties (e.g., customers or clients) to protect them from the harmful or criminal acts of other employees. This article contrasts negligent hiring to respondent superior and negligent entrustment, describes the components of negligent hiring, and reviews important legal cases. The article also discusses how employers can minimize the risk of negligent hiring through prudent human resource practices.     

Do Institutions Cause Growth?

We revisit the debate over whether political institutions cause economic growth, or whether, alternatively, growth and human capital accumulation lead to institutional improvement. We find that most indicators of institutional quality used to establish the proposition that institutions cause growth are constructed to be conceptually unsuitable for that purpose. We also find that some of the instrumental variable techniques used in the literature are flawed. Basic OLS results, as well as a variety of additional evidence, suggest that (a) human capital is a more basic source of growth than are the institutions, (b) poor countries get out of poverty through good policies, often pursued by dictators, and (c) subsequently improve their political institutions.     

企业人力资源管理分析——基于新制度经济学视角

学术界对人力资本和人力资源问题一直十分重视和关注.从制度经济学的视角探讨了人力资源管理和新制度经济学及其相关的理论研究之间的联系,为我们从制度与机制设计的角度认识人力资源管理系统的性质提供了新的思路.     

论私营企业产权制度变迁的实现机制

产权制度是社会发展的主要动力之一，它决定着社会如何组织生产和进行分配，因此，规范而有效率的产权制度是现代经济发展的基石。如何建立起高效的产权制度，是我国私营企业在发展过程中应该考虑的核心问题。本文对我国私营企业产权制度变迁及实现机制进行了系统分析。     

物业税可行吗？

物业税作为一种财产税，具有其自身的特征。未来我国在物业税的设计过程中需要考虑多种因素，规避相关风险，否则很可能使得现在的高房价变成未来的高额物业税。