A field experiment to estimate the effects of anchoring and framing on residents’ willingness to purchase water runoff management technologies

Watersheds throughout the world have been severely polluted by nutrient-laden runoff that comes from industrial, agricultural, and residential sources. Efforts to reduce this runoff have focused on industrial and agricultural sources, while little attention has been paid to encouraging residents to reduce runoff from their properties. To study residents’ willingness to adopt landscaping practices that reduce runoff, we conducted a field experiment in the Delaware River watershed. In the experiment, over three hundred adults participated in a series of random-price auctions that revealed their willingness to pay (WTP) for five products that reduce nutrient runoff. To study how WTP can be influenced by attributes of the choice architecture, we randomized the starting bid values (anchors) and the way in which the external benefits of the five practices were framed. Compared to a neutral framing, a positive framing (using the product can improve water quality) increased average WTP by about one-third, while the estimated effect of a negative framing (failing to use the product can worsen water quality) was also positive, but smaller and not statistically different from zero. The estimated effect on average WTP from the anchor depends on how bids of $0 are modeled, but the results imply that higher anchors lead to higher WTP. Although we believe the magnitudes of our results should be considered suggestive and we recommend replications with higher statistical power, the results add to the evidence base that environmental programs can achieve policy-relevant gains in program performance through a series of small changes to the decision environment.     

Measuring the deadly embrace: Systemic and sovereign risks

This study contributes to the literature by making a first step toward implementing a comprehensive internally coherent measurement of systemic risk in a country. It measures systemic risk and the ensuing conditional contingent liabilities of the sovereign stemming from Luxembourg’s Other Systemically Important Institutions (OSIIs), the Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) to which they belong, the investment funds sponsored by the OSIIs, the household and the non-financial corporate sectors. The ensuing estimated systemic contingent claims are included in a stochastic version of the general government’s balance sheet to gauge their impact on the country’s sovereign risk. Results indicate that time-varying conditional implicit guarantees from OSSIs are larger than those from G-SIBs and investment funds, while systemic risk stemming from the household and non-financial corporate sectors is moderate. The robustness of the sovereign is not drastically affected by systemic risk stemming from the rest of the economy. However, illustrating the so-called “deadly embrace”, sovereign risk would significantly rise as a result of a historically plausible increase in sovereign assets’ value volatility combined with an economy-wide shock. The main policy implication is that financial stability stands on two columns, a resilient financial sector and a sustainable fiscal position.     

The 2020 Pandemic: Economic repercussions and policy responses

This paper analyses the economic and financial repercussions of the 2020 COVID‐19 pandemic. It argues that the pandemic has inflicted serious injuries to the labor force but has not damaged the physical capital stock. Therefore, the resolution policies of this crisis ought to be carefully tailored to supporting structural adjustments to the labor market. The analysis asserts that the impact of the pandemic crisis is exacerbated by the identification gap between the unobserved and the officially reported cases of COVID‐19. The gap increases financial risks, including market‐, credit‐, default‐, and foreign exchange risks.     

The impact of non-performing loans on bank lending in Europe: An empirical analysis

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, considerable attention has been paid to the accumulation of non-performing loans in the balance sheet of European banks and to its potential negative effects on bank lending to the real economy. Using a dataset composed of bank-specific information and country aggregates, we study the impact of the stock and the flow of non-performing loans on the lending activities of a sample of 75 European banks between 2014 and 2018. In general, higher rates of non-performing loans, together with other variables, are associated with lower growth rates of performing loans. This effect persists across several econometric specifications and is more significant for those banks exhibiting lower growth rates of performing loans. Similarly, our econometric analysis suggests that banks with higher decreases in their rate of non-performing loans tend to lend more to the real economy, an effect which is particularly intense at the right tail of the distribution. The findings of our paper can be useful for policymakers when addressing the resolution of non-performing loans in banks.     

Do mutual fund flows affect the French corporate bond market?

We study whether investors’ withdrawals from mutual funds affect corporate bond prices. As mutual funds have become major players in the financial markets, they are likely to exert downward pressures on asset prices when facing investors’ redemptions, particularly in the less liquid markets such as corporate bonds. We use a novel dataset on the French bond funds and show that both flows in and out of mutual funds lead to a significant effect on the corporate bond yields. This effect is asymmetric as redemptions provoke a change in yields of greater magnitude than inflows. Moreover, all corporate bonds are not equally affected by investors’ withdrawals from funds: The more a bond is detained by funds, the higher the impact of redemptions on its yield. These three results are robust to various changes in econometric specifications.     

Transitions between equilibria in bilingual games under logit choice

We study the effect of introducing a bilingual option on the long run equilibrium outcome in a class of two-strategy coordination games with distinct payoff and risk dominant equilibria under the logit choice rule. Existing results show that in the class of two-strategy games under consideration, the inefficient risk dominant equilibrium is selected in the long run under noisy best response models. We show that if the cost of the bilingual option is sufficiently low then the efficient payoff dominant equilibrium will be selected in the long run under the logit choice rule.     

浅谈新形势下如何稳定青年员工队伍

青年员工是保证企业可持续发展的生力军,构建稳定的青年员工队伍关系到企业的长远发展。随着社会经济的不断发展,青年员工的诉求日趋多元化。如何立足于新形势构建稳定的青年员工队伍是企业经营管理的重要内容。论文以新形势下青年员工队伍建设面临的机遇与挑战作为切入点,阐述影响青年员工稳定性的因素,最后提出稳定青年员工的具体对策,以期提升企业后备军的质量。     

重大水利工程项目决策社会稳定风险评估中公众参与成熟度的影响路径

重大水利工程项目决策社会稳定风险评估中,公众是重要的参与主体,个体间生活环境、知识背景及心理素质的差异性会直接影响稳评结果。公众参与成熟度是公众参与的衡量要素,由能力成熟度和心理成熟度两个方面构成。从能力与心理两个角度设计调查问卷,运用结构方程模型,探究内部影响路径。结果表明,公众参与心理成熟度直接影响能力成熟度,而能力成熟度又通过参与意愿影响着心理成熟度,两者间存在相互影响的关系。政府可以通过开展道德素质教育,改善公众参与动机,以提高公众参与心理成熟度及能力成熟度,最终整体提高公众参与成熟度,保证稳评工作的质量,提升重大水利工程项目决策科学性。     

土地整治对中国粮食产出稳定性的贡献

研究目的:研究土地整治对粮食产出稳定性的贡献,为制定合理高效的土地整治政策,促进粮食增产稳产提供依据。研究方法:采用H-P滤波法实证分析中国粮食产量的波动性及增长趋势,然后基于C-D生产函数,分别建立趋势产量和波动强度面板回归模型,分析土地整治对粮食产出稳定性的影响。研究结果:(1)粮食作物播种面积、农业机械总动力、农用化肥施用量均对粮食长期趋势产生不同程度促进作用;农业劳动力对主产区粮食长期趋势影响显著为负,对非主产区却有正向影响。(2)土地整治面积和单位面积投资额均降低了全国及主产区粮食产量的波动程度,土地整治规模在全国和主产区的影响系数分别为-1.4162和-2.2215;单位土地整治面积投资额在全国和主产区的影响系数分别为-0.7589和-1.3509。(3)土地整治新增耕地面积对全国和主产区的粮食产量波动强度影响为正,影响系数分别为0.8018和1.3931。可能是通过土地整治新增的耕地质量较低,产出不高,导致了粮食产量波动。土地整治投入在非主产区均表现为不显著。研究结论:应继续推进尤其是主产区的土地整治项目实施,加大土地整治投资强度,建立长期稳定的投入机制,合理使用整治资金,注重提高新增耕地质量和综合生产能力,同时将土地整治投入和管理机制与农业生产系统运行机制、自然因素等有效结合,并制定差别化区域政策,以保障粮食增产稳产和区域协调发展。