从长期萧条中走出的日本经济

相对而言,日本的经济很长时间以来都乏善可陈.日本终于处在十五年萧条的尾声,日本还没有完全走出低谷,在最近一两年,我们看到了曙光.现在日本经济有什么样的问题呢?它对中国的影响如何?或对其他国家的影响是什么?     

Sequential product positioning in the presence of an asymmetric network externality intensity

In this study, we analyze the sequential decisions on product positioning of two firms in the presence of network externalities. One commonly accepted phenomena in a market where a network externality arises is the first‐mover advantage, in which the first entrant into a market can earn a higher profit than later entrants. However, in some recent online services markets, we see that the second mover earns a higher profit than the first mover. This occurs because the second mover strengthens its variety of available functions and services markedly, thereby facilitating consumers' work and communication with its main product, which we call network externality intensity. Based on this observation, we analyze sequential positioning in Hotelling's framework by incorporating an asymmetric network externality intensity between firms. We show that unlike the results of previous related studies, both first‐ and second‐mover advantages can appear in the equilibrium depending on the relationship of the network externality intensity between firms; further, they do not change monotonically with the level of network externality intensity.     

Credit risk analysis with creditor’s option to extend maturities

We present a Merton (J Finance, 1974)-type structural model of credit risk in which the borrower firm refinances its debt, there is cost for bankruptcy, and the creditor has an option to extend the date of maturity of debt if the firm defaults. We show that a solution exists in such a model and in that solution the creditor has incentive to extend maturity to avoid bankruptcy cost. We solve the model numerically and argue that such maturity extension option for the creditor can have substantial impact on the debt and stock values of the firm.     

An Elementary Approach to Approximate Equilibria with Infinitely Many Commodities

We prove the existence of approximate equilibria in a finite exchange economy with a countably infinite number of commodities and nonconvex preferences, when every trader has an excess demand set that is finitely spannable, i.e., that could be covered by a union of its convex subsets in finitely many steps. We show that the bound on the norm of the per capita aggregate excess demand is reciprocally related to the square root of the population. Extensions are also made to the case where countably many commodities are indivisible. The proofs are elementary. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D50, C62, D52.     

The synchronization of business cycles across the European Community

The recent adoption of the Delors Report brings into question the extent of the EC integration and the costs to individual countries of continued integration. In this paper we address this question by comparing EC countries to non-EC countries, specifically comparing the extent to which domestic policies are coordinated. We find a strong coordination between EC countries as compared to non-EC countries. However, Italy shows up as a persistent outlier in the EC, requiring a reformulation of domestic policy goals if continued integration is desired.     

A structural model of mode-activity choice: The case of commuter rail in a medium-size metropolitan area

Commuters in a medium size city may change how they travel from day to day during the week. A structural equations model is developed to examine commuter’s planning decisions about activities and modes during a work day. The model is applied to the problem of selecting commuter rail in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. On a typical weekday, a commuter’s mode choice is affected by activities at the destination. However, when the commuter is faced with a mix of travel modes over time, the mode choice becomes a significant predictor of non-work/school activities.     

Local risk-minimization for Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard models

We obtain explicit representations of locally risk-minimizing strategies for call and put options in Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard models, which are Ornstein–Uhlenbeck-type stochastic volatility models. Using Malliavin calculus for Lévy processes, Arai and Suzuki (Int. J. Financ. Eng. 2:1550015, 2015) obtained a formula for locally risk-minimizing strategies for Lévy markets under many additional conditions. Supposing mild conditions, we make sure that the Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard models satisfy all the conditions imposed in (Arai and Suzuki in Int. J. Financ. Eng. 2:1550015, 2015). Among others, we investigate the Malliavin differentiability of the density of the minimal martingale measure. Moreover, we introduce some numerical experiments for locally risk-minimizing strategies.