Preference purification and the inner rational agent: a critique of the conventional wisdom of behavioural welfare economics

Neoclassical economics assumes that individuals have stable and context-independent preferences, and uses preference satisfaction as a normative criterion. By calling this assumption into question, behavioural findings cause fundamental problems for normative economics. A common response to these problems is to treat deviations from conventional rational choice theory as mistakes, and to try to reconstruct the preferences that individuals would have acted on, had they reasoned correctly. We argue that this preference purification approach implicitly uses a dualistic model of the human being, in which an inner rational agent is trapped in an outer psychological shell. This model is psychologically and philosophically problematic.     

农地城市流转前后农民福利变化研究——基于农民分化的视角

农地城市流转是土地资源要素在城市化进程中重新配置的必然过程。为探明异质化日益明显的农民群体的福利水平在此过程中是否发生了差异性变动,采用湖北省武汉市所辖6个远城区的问卷调查数据,运用模糊积分评价方法对纯农业生产者、半工半农者和经商兼农者等3种分化类型农民在农地城市流转前后的福利变动情况进行了实证研究。结果表明,农民整体福利水平在农地城市流转后略有上升;3种分化类型农民的福利水平均有所改善,但改善程度存在差异,改善幅度由大至小依次为经商兼农类农民、半工半农类农民和纯农业生产类农民;提升纯农业生产者和半工半农者这两个分化类型的福利水平是改善农民整体福利状况的关键;此外,影响这两类群体福利水平的因素集中在家庭经济状况、社会保障状况、心理感受以及环境条件4个方面。     

Third-party remanufacturing mode selection: Outsourcing or authorization?

Many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) allow third-party remanufacturers (3PRs) to perform remanufacturing operations of branded or patented products – through either outsourcing or authorization. This study compares these two modes by modeling the game between the OEM and the 3PR on equilibrium quantities, prices, and profits. The results suggest that when consumers perceive the remanufactured products with a low value, the 3PR prefers the authorization approach; otherwise the 3PR prefers the outsourcing approach. However, in both scenarios, the OEM obtains higher profit through outsourcing than through authorization. Our further analysis compares two modes’ impacts on consumer surplus, social welfare, and environment.     

Mobile technology & resident attitude research

This research note highlights the novelty of integrating location-based services (LBS) available on Smart Phones and Tablets into traditional resident attitude survey methodologies such as door-to-door data collection. It specifically reviews how the LBS technology available on mobile devices can be used to systematically capture GPS coordinates of one's residence and integrate this captured spatial information into software such as ArcGIS and SPSS for further analysis. By having GPS coordinates associated with respondents' answers, researchers have an additional layer of information available for conducting a multitude of tests previously not possible with subjective categorical spatial data. Two research applications using the spatial location of residences are provided as examples of how LBS available on mobile devices can be integrated within resident attitude projects. The use of LBS technology can help researchers better understand how the distance residents live from major tourist attractions influences their attitudes towards tourism.     

Price Discrimination with Private and Imperfect Information

In this paper, I investigate the competitive and welfare effects of the improvements in information accuracy in markets where firms can price discriminate after observing a private and noisy signal about a consumer's brand preference. I show that when firms believe that consumers have a brand preference for them, then they charge more to these consumers, and this price has an inverse U‐shaped relationship with the signal's accuracy. In contrast, the price charged after a disloyal signal has been observed falls as the signal's accuracy rises. While industry profit and overall welfare fall monotonically when price discrimination is based on increasingly more accurate information, the reverse happens to consumer surplus.     

Constructive and computable Hahn–Banach theorems for the (second) fundamental theorem of welfare economics

The Hahn–Banach Theorem plays a crucial role in the second fundamental theorem of welfare economics. To date, all mathematical economics and advanced general equilibrium textbooks concentrate on using non-constructive or incomputable versions of this celebrated theorem. In this paper we argue for the introduction of constructive or computable Hahn–Banach theorems in mathematical economics and advanced general equilibrium theory. The suggested modification would make applied and policy-oriented economics intrinsically computational.     

Does the Welfare State Destroy the Family? Evidence from OECD Member Countries

We study the effect of the size of the welfare state on demographic trends in OECD member countries. Exploiting exogenous variation in public social spending, due to varying degrees of political fractionalization (i.e., the number of relevant parties involved in the legislative process), we show that an expansion in the welfare state increases fertility, marriage, and divorce rates with a quantitatively stronger effect on the marriage rate. We conclude that the welfare state supports family formation in the aggregate. Further, we find that the welfare state decouples marriage and fertility, and therefore alters the organization of the average family.     

Water pricing reform analysis: alternative scenarios

This paper compares alternative transition paths to efficient water pricing. The analysis is based on representative agent model, where two sources of water supply exist: exhaustible groundwater stock and a renewable substitute. Two alternative water pricing reforms are considered: gradual tariff increase and multipart pricing with first block sold at the initial pre-reform tariff and additional water sold at higher prices (block pricing reform). Under block pricing reform, the amount of water offered at low price gradually diminishes. The results of comparative analysis prove that under the same reform time horizon block pricing is preferred to the gradual tariff increase.     

公益性社会组织公信力研究

公益性社会组织公信力是公益性社会组织获得利益相关者和社会公众信任的能力,体现组织与利益相关者和社会公众的互动关系,是公益性社会组织生存和发展的生命线。我国公益性社会组织公信力缺失的原因在于法律和政策管理错位,公益性社会组织欠缺合法性和自主性,内部治理和发展能力不足,缺乏公开性和透明度,外部监督和评估机制不完善,活动偏离公益使命。为此,急需改善公益性社会组织管理的法律和政策环境,强化其信息披露和内部治理,健全社会监督和问责机制。