POSTING MULTIPLE PRICES TO REDUCE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CONSUMER PRICE SEARCH*

In a model of competition with imperfect consumer price information and incomplete price search, some consumers may end up comparing prices originating from the same supplier: either because one firm sets multiple prices or because a group of firms colludes. This leads to added monopoly power for these firms, and average prices in the mixed strategy equilibrium become higher. There is a shift in welfare from consumers to producers, both with exogenous and endogenous consumer search behaviour. However consumers might search more or less with multiple prices. The implications for the price‐setting equilibrium, competition policy and recent judgements are considered.     

习近平关于社区治理重要论述的理论定位与实践向度

习近平关于社区治理的一系列重要论述是改革开放以来我国社区建设实践的理论升华,是国家治理视域下基层社会治理与社会建设的理论总结,是"以人民为中心"导向下"民生为本"的社区治理范式创新,为新时代社区治理提供了理论引领与行动指南。习近平关于社区治理的重要论述包含:坚持党建引领的治理原则,激发共建共治共享的内生动力,夯实群众性自治制度的治理基础,协同自治、德治与法治的治理策略等多维实践向度。习近平总书记对社区疫情风险治理做出的重要指示进一步丰富和发展了城乡社区治理的理论与实践。     

The Political Economy of Higher Education: An 'Austrian' Aalysis

One of the most wasteful inefficiencies of the nationalised industries is that, isolated from price signals in the market, they make mistaken investment decisions. State-run higher education is no different. Excessive investment, following the Robbins Report of 1963, has resulted in over-staffing, but university 'managers'– vice-chancellors, heads of department, etc. – have no incentive to maximise efficiency by firing less desirable members of staff. It is the better qualified lecturers who are leaving, bribed with severance payments, to take up jobs in the private sector.     

Lumpy Investment,Lumpy Inventories

The link between the microenvironment (frictions and heterogeneity) and the macroeconomic dynamics of general equilibrium macromodels is influenced by exactly how general equilibrium closes the model. We make this observation concrete using the recent literature on how nonconvex capital adjustment costs influence aggregate investment dynamics. We introduce inventories into a two‐sector lumpy investment model and find that nonconvex capital adjustment costs dampen and propagate investment impulse responses, more so than without inventories. With two means of transferring consumption into the future, fixed capital and inventories, the tight link between aggregate saving and fixed capital investment is broken.     

Paper and Hill: An In‐Class Corporate Governance Case

Corporate governance is a set of rules and processes that help ensure that firms are effectively run for the benefit of their stakeholders. Good corporate governance is predicated on having directors fulfill their fiduciary duties while acting as stewards of the corporation. The fact that good corporate governance is essential to a well‐functioning and prosperous society is reflected in CPA Canada's Strategy and Governance competency. Unfortunately, there are few in‐class Canadian corporate governance cases that instructors can use to help accounting students improve their understanding of these three fundamental governance concepts: director duty of care, director duty of loyalty, and the business judgment rule. This Canadian corporate governance case is based on the actual events regarding the approval of Steven Hill's employment contract as the Chair of Paper Enterprises Inc. The case is presented using PowerPoint slides, rather than in a traditional narrative format, as it intended to be used as an in‐class case that does not require advance student preparation.     

Asymmetric effects of monetary policy shocks on economic performance: empirical evidence from Turkey

This study investigates the asymmetric effects of monetary policy shocks on the macroeconomic variables of exchange rate, output and inflation for an emerging economy ? Turkey ? by using monthly data between 1990 and 2014. We employ the innovative nonlinear vector autoregressive model of Kilian and Vigfusson (2011), which allows us to observe the effect of different stances (tight or loose) and different sizes (small or large) of monetary policy actions. Our empirical evidence reveals that tight monetary policy, which, in this case, is captured with a positive shock to interest rate, decreases exchange rate, output and prices, as economic theory suggests. Loose monetary policy, which is captured with a negative shock to interest rate, has the opposite effect on these variables. However, the effects of loose monetary policy are weaker than the effects of tight monetary policy because loose monetary policy shocks are less effective than tight monetary policy shocks. Moreover, as the magnitude of a shock increases, the difference between the effects of tight and loose monetary policy policies also increases.     

COURSE BIDDING AT BUSINESS SCHOOLS*

Mechanisms that rely on course bidding are widely used at business schools in order to allocate seats at oversubscribed courses. Bids play two key roles under these mechanisms: to infer student preferences and to determine who have bigger claims on course seats. We show that these two roles may easily conflict, and preferences induced from bids may significantly differ from the true preferences. Therefore, these mechanisms, which are promoted as market mechanisms, do not necessarily yield market outcomes. We introduce a Pareto‐dominant market mechanism that can be implemented by asking students for their preferences in addition to their bids over courses.