Portfolio selection with two-stage preferences

We propose a model of portfolio selection under ambiguity, based on a two-stage valuation procedure which disentangles ambiguity and ambiguity aversion. The model does not imply “extreme pessimism” from the part of the investor, as multiple priors models do. Furthermore, its analytical tractability allows to study complex problems thus far not analyzed, such as joint uncertainty about means and variances of returns.     

Sustainable consumer empowerment through critical consumer education: a typology of consumer education approaches

It has always been assumed that consumer education serves the purpose of empowering people in their consumer role. This paper reviews the conventional understanding of consumer education and empowerment and then suggests an alternate approach. The argument is made for consumer education that helps people find their inner power and social potential to challenge the status quo, to change the system from a holistic perspective. Consumer empowerment of this type is totally self‐sustaining. Once learned, it cannot be unlearned. This form of sustainable consumer empowerment is the preferred direction for the future of consumer education.     

ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE AND INTERNATIONAL INTERACTIONS : THE IMPACT OF MARKET POWER ON DYADIC CONFLICT AND COOPERATION

This article presents a theoretical approach to analysing how a country with market power could affect international relations. The liberal view and trade‐conflict model claim that if countries seek to protect their trade gains, trade will reduce conflict between pairs of countries, designated “actors” and “targets”. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of market power on the gains from trade. Once the distribution of trade gains is changed between countries, the conflict and cooperation relationships between countries will also alter. We apply the trade‐conflict model to derive two propositions as follows: (1) the more monopoly power over exports a monopolistic target has, the greater the amount of actor‐to‐target conflict; (2) the more monopsony power over imports a monopolistic target has, the greater the amount of actor‐to‐target conflict. To summarise, these hypotheses will predict that a country with market power reaps the gains from trade and will exhibit less conflict and more cooperation, whilst the country that is exploited will exhibit more conflict and less cooperation.     

频道专业化后电视业存在的问题与对策

我国电视业在电视频道专业化后，频道定位模糊，缺乏精品节目和名牌栏目，电视资源严重浪费。电视受众的感觉仍是新瓶装陈醋。旧的电视管理体制，包括用人机制、节目交换购买制度等是制约电视业发展的桎梏。必须建立一套与市场化相适应的电视创新机制。自我发展、市场运作、以服务为中心的产业模式是电视业发展的唯一出路。     

Market Structure and Fiscal Policy Effectiveness

In a monopolistic competition macromodel with endogenous market structure, the fiscal multiplier is shown to consist of two components. The first depicts the response of output to a fiscal expansion through the conventional channels that disregard the role of market imperfections. The second component captures the effects of firms' market power as well as the policy-induced change in market structure. The latter effect—which has not been taken into account in existing studies—is shown to be quite significant in raising the fiscal multiplier (even above unity) and in improving consumers' welfare when the labour market is competitive.     

Investment and technological choice in a right-to-manage model

We analyze the interactions between investment and local wage bargaining in a putty-clay model where the investment decision commits the firm to a particular capital intensity. This technological precommitment is used strategically in order to manipulate the bargaining outcome. We show that this strategic behavior induces a nonmonotonic relationship between the capital and labor demands of the firm and most of its environmental parameters (e.g., the bargaining power of the union, its minimum wage requirement, the capital cost). The results we obtain in our putty-clay framework thus contradict several conclusions of the standard literature on wage bargaining and investment.     

从"五七"空难反思我国的旅游保险业

近几年，我国的旅游业蓬勃发展，但与之紧密联系的旅游保险业却发展滞后，“五七”空难中的保险情况就给了我们一个极大的教训。本文针对目前我国旅游保险发展的现状，指出了其发展滞后的表面原因，国民的旅游保险意识普遍较低，并深入探讨了造成这种现象的深层次原因。在此分析的基础上，从三方面提出了在新形势下发展旅游保险的构想。     

Commodity currencies

This paper looks at real exchange rate behavior by focusing on three OECD economies (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) where primary commodities constitute a significant share of their exports. For Australia and New Zealand especially, we find that the US dollar price of their commodity exports (generally exogenous to these small economies) has a strong and stable influence on their floating real rates, with the magnitude of the effects consistent with predictions of standard theoretical models. However, after controlling for commodity price shocks, there is still a purchasing power parity puzzle in the residual. The results here are relevant to developing commodity-exporting countries as they liberalize their capital markets and move towards floating exchange rates.     

我国电力改革中的垄断问题分析

针对新一轮的电力体制改革中存在或将出现的电力垄断问题,文章从发电企业的规模、电力改革的发展阶段和电网三个方面进行了分析,并指出形成竞争性的发电市场、改造电网企业、互联电网和加强政府监管等用以解决垄断形成的对策。     

Stochastic Technology, Risk Preferences, and Adoption of Site-Specific Technologies

A model of farmer decision making is developed to determine the extent to which uncertainties about soil fertility and weather affect the value of site-specific technologies (SSTs) using jointly estimated risk and technology parameters. Uncertainty can lead risk-averse farmers to apply more fertilizers and generate more pollution than in the certainty case. Ignoring uncertainty and risk aversion would overestimate the economic and environmental benefits of SSTs and underestimate the subsidy required to induce adoption. Accounting for uncertainties and risk preferences might explain the low observed adoption rates of SSTs. Improving the accuracy of SSTs would increase the incentives for adoption.