Graduate Economics Programs in the United States

Sterrett and Barr comment on the results of a survey of graduate programs in economics in the United States and on the marked increase in the number of masters degrees granted by the responding institutions.     

Forecasting Job Placements of Economics Graduate Students

An argument is made for the offering of an undergraduate course consisting of a broad series of topics in advanced economics.     

城市交通拥堵的经济学分析--基于计算经济学的模拟检验

交通拥挤是我国目前大城市社会关注的一个焦点,也是一个世界性难题。文章从交通经济学的基本理论出发,探讨了控制需求、增加供给、解决交通拥挤的各种实际手段和途径。同时还使用了交通系统的模拟软件来介绍运用计算经济学的方法评估和解决实际交通问题的思想,以供交通管理的决策者和研究人员参考。     

Labour participation in Colombia

A model is estimated for the decision of participating in the labour market for different groups of household members: not coupled (single, divorced and widow) women and men and coupled (married and in permanent union) women and men. The differences among these groups are significant. Probit models are estimated for the period 1984?:?1–2000?:?4 using the National Housing Survey. The neoclassical static model performs fairly well in describing the empirical determinants of the decision of participating. In terms of sign and significance of estimated coefficients the best performance of the model is reached for women. In terms of prediction the model proves useful for not coupled persons. Except for the variable named ‘children aged less than six years’, all variables perform well.     

Herbert J. Davenport on Conspicuous Consumption and the Economics of Feminism

This article analyzes Herbert J. Davenport’s discussions of conspicuous consumption and feminism. Even though these (typically) Veblenian topics represent two “episodes” in many respects disconnected with the central body of Davenport’s theoretical interests, the assessment of Davenport’s views on these matters enlarges our knowledge of the development of his thought. Our analysis shows how Davenport can be enrolled among the forerunners of the modern theory of positional goods. Moreover, our article offers some new findings on the impact of Veblen’s ideas on one of his closest students at the Chicago University.     

Comparative Research Productivity Measures for Economics Departments

The typical profit-maximization solution for the joint-production problem found in intermediate texts, managerial texts, and other texts concerned with optimal pricing is oversimplified and inconsistent with profit maximization, unless there is either no excess of any of the joint products or no costs associated with dumping. However, it is an inappropriate method of solution where excess does exist and the costs of dumping are explicitly recognized and, with respect to such cases, is at least nongeneral. The authors present a more realistic alternative method of solution, although more complex, as a substitute for the textbook method of solution typically offered.     

Preparing Graduate Students in Economics for Teaching: Survey Findings and Recommendations

Survey data from PhD-granting economics departments are used to assess the teaching preparation of graduate students in economics. The results show that relatively few departments require graduate student instructors to take a credit course in teaching before teaching their own course or leading a recitation section. Although more graduate student instructors are required to take a noncredit course in teaching before serving as an instructor or recitation leader, the value of such noncredit courses may be limited. The assessment of teaching preparation by department chairs shows mixed responses, with about three-fifths rating it as very good or good and about two-fifths considering it to be only adequate or poor. Recommendations are offered for improving the teaching preparation of graduate student instructors in economics.     

Institutionalism and the New Classical Economics

Neoliberalism has transformed markets supplying public goods. Analysis of five real-world Australian markets reveals the eligibility rules for access and ongoing participation, interaction of participants, the role of intermediaries and government, the extent of competition, complex regulatory regimes shaping and controlling these markets, and key market outcomes. Contrary to neoliberalism's free market rhetoric and the view promulgated by mainstream economics, a spectrum of market configurations and governance regimes were found along with participation being highly dependent on technology access and skills, market outcomes inconsistent with policy rhetoric, market interrelationships posing adverse cumulative impacts, and government is strongly interventionist through multiple roles.     

Revealing information in auctions: the allocation effect

When there are two bidders, releasing independent information in an English auction with private values makes the seller worse off. However, this is no longer true with more bidders: when there is enough competition, revelation benefits the auctioneer. In three examples the dividing case is shown to be three bidders. This allocation effect applies to other standard auctions and parallels the bundling decision in a multi-unit auction. I would like to thank Jeremy Bulow, Willie Fuchs, Paul Klemperer, Rob McMillan, Phil Reny, Jeff Zwiebel and especially Andy Skrzypacz. I also grateful to two referees and an Associate Editor for a number of helpful comments.     

The Effectiveness of Graduate Students as Teachers of the Principles of Economics

Everyone involved in the teaching of economics (but particularly program advisers, thesis sponsors and departmental administrators) would benefit from a greater knowledge of the factors associated with success on the part of students. Robert L. Decker, Executive Director of the Economics Department at the University of California in Berkeley, reports on a study of success and attrition characteristics of economics students entering the Ph.D. program. Among the factors considered are the overall Ph.D. completion rate, median time spent in the program, class size, the nature and quality of the candidate's undergraduate institution, sex, and time elapsed between completion of the baccalaureate and entry into the Ph.D. program. Decker concludes his paper with a discussion of the policy implications of his findings.     

实验经济学的兴起与公共产品理论的发展

实验经济学是经济学的一个新的分支,其研究内容主要包括个人决策、市场交易、博弈论、学习理论和方法论。它的兴起对公共财政论的核心理论——公共产品理论产生了影响,加深了搭便车问题的研究,对如何有效提供公共产品从实验角度给出了有益的启示,推动了公共产品理论的研究。     

Hiding in Plain Sight: A Note on Public Goods,Information Technology,and Productivity

This research note advances a conjecture that may help to explain the “paradox” of productivity and information technology (IT). Conventional measures of the economic output of the IT sector may substantially understate the actual value of IT because software is a public good, which is largely unpriced. I provide a simple exploratory calculation that lends plausibility to this explanation. I hope that this conjecture may inspire research by those with greater expertise in the evolution of software.     

零售商竞争环境下闭环供应链的协调问题研究

本文研究了由一家制造商和两家零售商所组成的闭环供应链系统的协调问题,利用博弈理论对两零售商竞争环境下非合作分散决策模型和合作集中决策模型进行了分析,得到了闭环供应链系统成员的最优定价策略和最终利润。据此,本文提出了一种收益分享协调定价策略,以使分散决策下供应链系统的利润达到集中决策下的利润水平。最后,通过数值仿真分析了两零售商新产品需求价格弹性系数和竞争替代系数、废旧品回收价格敏感系数和竞争替代系数对供应链系统定价决策和利润的影响。     

退耕还林的经济学理论基础:基于外在性和公共品理论的考察

本文将退耕还林工程纳入主流经济学框架中进行分析，对其经济学理论基础进行评价，并揭示其内在的经济学逻辑。首先，在外在性理论框架中讨论开征庇古税的局限性，借用科斯定理自愿的市场交易方式也难以达到退耕还林及水土保持的效果。其次，通过建立一个公共品供给博弈模型阐明了退耕还林由城市居民承担成本的原因，并借用最优税收理论阐明这一理论所导致的政策的社会成本高昂，作为一种替代机制的委托一代理成为节约社会成本的方式。最后，提出了若干政策建议。     

On the use of labels in credence goods markets

We analyze credence goods markets in the case of two firms. Consumers know that the quality of the good varies but do not know which firm is of high quality. First, we show that the high quality producer may be unable to monopolize the market, or even to survive in some cases, in situations where it is efficient and trusted by all consumers. Second, although a label restoring full information improves welfare, it may also reduce both firms’ profits by intensifying competition. Since even the high quality producer may not wish to label its product, in such cases the label must be mandatory. Third, an imperfect label which moves everybody’s beliefs closer to the truth without restoring full information may produce adverse results on market structure and welfare, either by increasing or by reducing the variance of beliefs.      

消费者信息处理方式研究综述:基于商品评价的视角

个体的购买决策被认为是一种信息处理过程,信息处理方式能有效揭示消费者将输入信息转化为输出结果的购买决策机制。本文从购买决策中消费者商品信息评价的视角,对消费者信息处理的具体方式、分类及其研究方法进行分析总结,以期为后续研究打下基础。     

A Further Note on Programmed Learning in Economics

The teaching of economics at the pre-college level in Britain has been increasing rapidly, a fact that is viewed with alarm by university teachers who feel that more harm than good is done in the process. Harbury and Szreter compare the performance of students who studied economics before coming to the university with those who did not, concluding that prior study of economics does not “… appear to inhibit the success of the future undergraduate.” They discuss several factors, such as age, sex, and mathematics background, which seem to be associated with above-average marks in university economics.     

A Training System for Graduate Student Instructors of Introductory Economics at the University of Minnesota

Lewis and Orvis report on a systematic teacher training program for Graduate Student Instructors involving an integrated series of student evaluations, videotaped lecture observations and instructional seminars. This program when evaluated showed a significant and measurable impact on both student and instructor performances in the classroom.     

Giffen goods and market making

Summary. This paper shows that information effects per se are not responsible for the Giffen goods anomaly affecting traders demands in multi asset noisy, rational expectations equilibrium markets. The role that information plays in traders strategies also matters. In a market with risk averse, uninformed traders, informed agents have a dual trading motive: speculation and market making. The former entails using prices to assess the effect of error terms; the latter requires employing them to disentangle noise traders demands within aggregate orders. In a correlated environment this complicates the signal extraction problem and may generate upward sloping demand curves. Assuming (i) that competitive, risk neutral market makers price the assets or that (ii) uninformed traders risk tolerance coefficient grows unboundedly, removes the market making component from informed traders demands rendering them well behaved in prices.Received: 30 April 2002, Revised: 3 December 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: G100, G120, G140.Support from the Barcelona Economics Program of CREA and the Ente per gli Studi Monetari e Finanziari Luigi Einaudi, are gratefully acknowledged. I thank Anat Admati, Jordi Caballé, Giacinta Cestone, and Xavier Vives for useful suggestions. The comments provided by the Associate Editor and an anonymous referee greatly improved the papers exposition.     

Tertiary Performance, Field of Study and Graduate Starting Salaries

This paper analyses data from the University of Western Australia (UWA) Graduate Destination Survey linked to information from the University's Student Records System to explore the determinants of graduates' starting salaries over the years 2002 to 2004. While the details examined also include age, gender, language spoken at home, country of birth, disability status and high school attended, most emphasis is placed on the impact on starting salaries of students' academic performance and their field of study. The analyses show that the main determinant of graduates' starting salaries is the weighted average mark they achieve at university. The salary differentials associated with higher marks in the Australian labour market appear greater than those reported in similar studies of the US and the UK labour markets. Science graduates are shown to have relatively low starting salaries, casting a shadow over recent suggestions that the supply of this group be increased through lower fee regimes.