Investment Incentives in Procurement Auctions

This paper investigates firms' incentives to invest in cost reduction in the first price sealed bid auction, a format largely used for procurement. Two central features of the model are that we allow firms to be heterogeneous and that investment is observable. We find that firms will tend to underinvest in cost reduction because they anticipate fiercer head-on competition. Using the second price auction as a benchmark, we also find that the first price auction will elicit less investment from market participants and that this is socially inefficient. These results have implications for market design when investment is important.     

The Essential Features of Technology and Technology Education: A Conceptual Framework for the Development of OBE (Outcomes Based Education) Related Programmes in Technology Education

It appears that programme development in technology education is emerging from an atheoretical perspective. This could be attributed to the absence/neglect of conceptual frameworks (philosophical underpinning) in the development of programmes in technology education. This article explores the role of the content dimension of the 'essential features' of technology and technology education in OBE (Outcomes Based Education) related programme development. An instructional programme was developed using criteria derived from the essential features of technology and technology education. In order to gauge learners' experience, in relation to these essential features, a qualitative case study involving 20 learners was undertaken at a College of Education. Engagement with theprogramme proved to be an empowering experience for the learners who had hitherto not had the opportunity to experience a formal programme in technology education. Although it could not be proved conclusively that cognitive development had occurred, positive inter-dependence,shared responsibility, social skills and enhanced learning were evident. The study has shown that criteria derived from the 'essential features' of technology and technology education could serve as a reliable yardstick to measure the extent of learning in relation to these essential features     

国有企业、金融市场改革与养老保险制度改革的互动效应--中国如何解决老年保障问题?

中国政府非常清楚社会保障所面临的危机，决定寻求解决办法。拟议中的社会保障改革的核心是积累制和整合条块分割的体系，计划为每个工人建立个人退休账户，对养老基金进行有效投资。然而，这种改革受阻于三个关键因素。(1)在向积累制的转化过程中必须支付特制成本；(2)现有的社会保障体系条块分割、分散化管理3(3)已经积累的基金尚未取得高收益，也未分配到最有效率的用途上。     

The Dynamics of Self-Esteem and Physical Self: Between Preservation and Adaptation

The aim of this study was to model and characterize the psychologicalprocesses that underlie the dynamics of global self-esteem and physicalself over time. Twice a day for 228 consecutive days, seven participantscompleted a short inventory (PSI-6, Ninot et al., 2001) measuring sixsubjective dimensions: global self-esteem, physical self-worth, physicalcondition, sport competence, physical strength, and attractive body.Each series was modeled by means of ARIMA procedures. The resultsshowed that a simple moving average model provided a satisfactoryaccount for the dynamics of all series. This model suggests that acombination of two opposite processes underlies the dynamics ofself-concept: preservation, which tends to restore the previousvalue after a disturbance, and adaptation, which tends to inflectthe series in the direction of the perturbation.     

Using diffusion models to forecast market size in emerging markets with applications to the Chinese car market

Marketing managers have to forecast the market size and this forecast guides strategic decisions whether to continue exporting, open new factories or expand existing production operations. Forecasting sales and the market size is a challenging task; even more so in emerging markets where data is limited and the market demand is changeable. This research proposes a novel approach that applies diffusion models using car ownership data to forecast car sales. Car ownership data may be easier to access than sales data in emerging markets but marketing managers are more interested in the sales forecast. Researchers propose using diffusion models to forecast the adoption of new products or products which are new to consumers in a market. This research demonstrates that marketing managers can use diffusion models to predict car sales in China where cars are new products to most consumers in this market. Since the majority of car buyers in China are first time buyers, car manufacturers and retailers must also forecast when the market composition will change. This effectively means predicting when first time car buying will start to slow down and repeat/replacement purchase or second hand car purchase will become more important. To forecast both sales and market composition change, marketing managers must choose a robust model. Managers want insights from models that have been tested robustly especially in less stable market conditions. In this context, this study illustrates the value of using a rolling forecast instead of a fixed horizon approach when comparing and choosing which model to use to forecast both sales and market composition change for the Chinese car market.     

“Work is my passion”: The different affective,behavioural, and cognitive consequences of harmonious and obsessive passion toward work

This study applies the dualistic model of passion (Vallerand et al., 2003) to the work setting and examines the relationships between harmonious passion (characterized by a strong but controllable desire to engage in an activity), obsessive passion (characterized by an internal pressure to carry out an activity), and optimal functioning outcomes at work. Harmonious passion associated positively with: mental health; three elements of flow (i.e., concentration, control, and autotelic experience); vitality, and affective commitment. These relationships were partly mediated by satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In contrast, obsessive passion directly and negatively predicted mental health and weakly but positively predicted autotelic experience. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed. Copyright ©2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vertical Disintegration: A Dynamic Markovian Approach

In a model where a monopolistic downstream firm (assembler) negotiates simultaneously with each of its intermediate‐input suppliers the prices of the complementary components which enter its product, we analyze the process by which the assembler separates from its suppliers as a Markov Perfect equilibrium. Due to a negative strategic effect (the prices and profits of independent suppliers decrease when their number increases), the assembler’s marginal return from keeping an upstream subsidiary is lower than the market value of an independent supplier. Separation is immediate when the downstream firm’s initial number of upstream subsidiaries is below a critical level. It is progressive in the reverse case and eventually leads to a mixed strategy whereby the assembler keeps all the remaining subsidiaries with some probability, and sells all them off in one go with the complementary probability.