Fairness in the Mail and Opportunism in the Internet: A Newspaper Experiment on Ultimatum Bargaining

Abstract. On 11 May 2001, readers of the Berliner Zeitung were invited to participate in an ultimatum bargaining experiment played in the strategy vector mode: each participant chooses not only how much (s)he demands of the DM1,000 pie but also which of the nine possible offers of DM100, 200, …, 900 (s)he would accept or reject. In addition, participants were asked to predict the most frequent type of behavior. Three randomly selected proposer–responder pairs were rewarded according to the rules of ultimatum bargaining and three randomly chosen participants of those who predicted the most frequent type of behavior received a prize of DM500. Decisions could be submitted by mail, fax or via the internet. Behavior is described, statistically analyzed and compared to the usual laboratory ultimatum bargaining results.     

我国企业专业化与多元化经营战略的选择

进行专业化经营还是多元化经营是企业经营战略选择的重要方面。本文针对我国企业经营战略选择中存在的主要问题及现状,提出具体对策。笔者以为,以专业化发展为基础,围绕核心竞争力实施低度相关的多元化经营,是当前我国企业经营战略的模式选择。     

Limits to Substitution Between Ecosystem Services and Manufactured Goods and Implications for Social Discounting

This paper examines implications of limits to substitution for estimating substitutability between ecosystem services and manufactured goods and for social discounting. Based on a model that accounts for a subsistence requirement in the consumption of ecosystem services, we provide empirical evidence on substitution elasticities. We find an initial mean elasticity of substitution of two, which declines over time towards complementarity. We subsequently extend the theory of dual discounting by introducing a subsistence requirement. The relative price of ecosystem services is non-constant and grows without bound as the consumption of ecosystem services declines towards the subsistence level. An application suggests that the initial discount rate for ecosystem services is more than a percentage-point lower as compared to manufactured goods. This difference increases by a further half percentage-point over a 300-year time horizon. The results underscore the importance of considering limited substitutability in long-term public project appraisal.     

Consumer Inventory and Demand for Storable Goods: New Evidence from a Consumer Survey

In this study, I provide new evidence on consumer inventory from a unique survey on the purchase and inventory of a storable product. I confirm that the predictions regarding the correlations between the key variables of purchase probability, purchase quantity and inventory derived from the standard dynamic models of consumer inventory are consistent with the data. Furthermore, I find that the amount of daily consumption varies within a household across time and depends on inventory holding. The evidence does not conform to a constant consumption rate, which studies often assume for tractability.     

Implications of Bid Design and Willingness-To-Pay Distribution for Starting Point Bias in Double-Bounded Dichotomous Choice Contingent Valuation Surveys

We examine starting point bias in double-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys. We investigate (1) the seriousness of the biases for the location and scale parameters of the willingness-to-pay (WTP) in the presence of starting point bias; (2) whether or not these biases depend on the distribution of WTP and on the bid design; and (3) how well a commonly used diagnostic for starting point bias—a test of the null that bid set dummies entered in the right-hand side of the WTP model are jointly equal to zero—performs under various circumstances. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that the effect of ignoring starting point bias depends on the bid design and on the true distribution of WTP. A well-balanced, symmetric bid design may result in very modest biases even when the anchoring mechanism is very strong. The power of bid set dummies in detecting starting point bias is low. They tend to account for misspecifications in the distribution assumed by the researcher for the latent WTP, rather than capturing the presence of starting point bias.     

物联网发展现状及其中国发展模式的战略选择

文章基于物联网产业发展在中国经济结构转型中的作用和劳动分工理论,对物联网产业的国内外发展和当前中国物联网发展中所遇到的问题进行分析和梳理,报告了国内外物联网产业发展思路,通过采用比较分析方法和案例研究方法等,对中国物联网产业发展进行纵横两个层次、四个维度即产业发展思路、空间集群效应、规模经济性以及联结经济性方面,以及对中国物联网产业发展与其他产业相互融合的现状进行分析,如与市场经济中企业运营管理模式的融合等方面的调查,反映了中国物联网发展中遇到的主要问题,取得了阻碍目前中国物联网产业发展的主要制约因素。针对中国物联网产业发展中所遇到的主要问题即物联网产业链、技术成本、技术标准、外部不经济性等提出相应的改进措施和建议。     

地方政府的经济职能与公共投资关系探讨

不同层级的地方政府,其职能存在着一定的差别,但是提供公共产品与服务是它们最为基本和首要的职能。是什么驱使地方政府最大化地提供满足当地居民和企业的公共物品与服务呢?文章认为主要原因有二:向上政绩显示的行为倾向使得经济增长成为地方政府最为关注的目标;地方政府竞争的压力使得地方政府加大公共投资的力度。在存在地方政府间"联邦式"或"准联邦式"竞争的国家中,地方政府都会面对税收和公共服务水平的两难选择,从吸引税基的长期效应看,公共服务竞争可能比税收和补贴竞争更有效,公共投资竞争已成为我国地方政府竞争的主要表现方式。文章认为,公共投资水平应该与地方经济增长相适应,超前或落后均是不符合资源最优配置原则的。     

Modes of international activities and the innovativeness of firms: an empirical analysis based on the Japanese National Innovation Survey for 2009

We quantitatively examine the factors which account for differences in innovation output depending on the mode of international activities, employing the innovation accounting framework proposed by Mairesse and Mohnen [2001. To be or not to be innovative: An exercise in measurement. NBER Working Paper No. 8644. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research; 2002. “Accounting for Innovation and Measuring Innovativeness: An Illustrative Framework and an Application.” American Economic Review 92 (2): 226–230]. We find that internationally engaged firms use more innovation inputs and generate more innovation outputs. Firms with R&D establishments abroad show the best innovation performance. A significant part of the higher innovation performance of internationally engaged firms can be explained by their greater intra-firm knowledge spillovers, R&D intensity, perceived competitive pressure, and proximity to basic research. However, more importantly, our innovation efficiency analysis suggests that engagement in international activities increases the sales amount of innovative products though it does not necessarily raise the probability that a firm successfully develops a new product or process.